The West Port community in Port Charlotte is among the large residential developments driving Charlotte County's population growth as officials plan new infrastructure, public services and economic development to meet future demand.
Following several years of falling condominium prices and a buildup of inventory, prices and demand are slowly coming back as the Charlotte County market emerges from several factors that kept it depressed.
September data supplied by Realtors of Punta Gorda-Port Charlotte-North Port-DeSoto Inc. show closed sales of condominiums and townhomes increased 2.2% from a year earlier. The median sale price rose 0.8% year over year to $216,700, while the months’ supply of inventory fell 37.2% to 5.9 months, compared with 9.4 months in September 2025.
There were 661 active listings in September, a 17.7% decrease year over year, another indicator that the market is absorbing inventory.
Shelton Weeks, a Lucas Professor of Real Estate at Florida Gulf Coast University, explained the reasons for a weaker condo and townhome market compared with single-family homes, which have maintained both strength and demand over the last several years.
He said the market statewide was shaken by legislation requiring structural inspections and reserve funding for certain condominium and cooperative associations.
Shelton Weeks is a Lucas Professor of Real Estate and director of the Lucas Institute for Real Estate Development & Finance at Florida Gulf Coast University’s Lutgert College of Business.
Following the June 24, 2021, partial collapse of Champlain Towers South in Surfside, which killed 98 people, Florida enacted legislation in May 2022 requiring residential condominium and cooperative buildings three or more stories tall to undergo milestone inspections after 30 years, with inspections every 10 years thereafter. Local officials may require an initial inspection after 25 years under certain conditions.
Condominium associations also were required to maintain reserves to cover major structural repairs.
In Charlotte County, Hurricane Ian in 2022 damaged roofs on a number of condos and townhomes of varying heights, in addition to causing leaks and other structural damage. As a result, association fees were raised to cover repair costs.
Several condo and townhome owners whose Punta Gorda units served as second homes put their properties on the market to avoid higher association fees, adding to an already glutted market, according to interviews with several local Realtors.
For some condo and townhome owners, it became unaffordable to remain in their units. Many Charlotte County residents live on fixed incomes, and the county’s median age is about 60, with roughly 41% of the population age 65 and older, according to U.S. Census Bureau data.
Weeks said national media coverage created a panic, pointing to a story in The Wall Street Journal that “painted a doom and gloom picture for condos” in the aftermath of the Florida legislation.
This discouraged would-be buyers from purchasing a condo or townhome.
But the market has shifted since then, he said. Now, condos and to
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