Marco Island is a great place to live in sunny Southwest Florida. It is the biggest of Florida’s amazing Ten Thousand Islands chain stretching from Everglades City to Flamingo, the 6800 acre island has an impressive collection of sights and sounds to keep city residents enamored with the peaceful community for a lifetime.

Part of the 99-mile Wilderness Waterway, Marco Island’s varied plant life, animal life, and geography alone is astounding. There are hills of sand, forests of pine trees, fields and pristine sandy beaches, and a swamp of salt-water-friendly mangrove trees. Burrowing owls inhabit the island–in fact, bird watchers say that the island is the only island in the Ten Thousand Islands eco-system to be home to these owls.

Marco Island has a full range of city services, with an excellent school system and utilities infrastructure. One can find numerous things to do on Marco Island, including snorkeling, canoeing, jet skiing, fishing, and more. There are even archaeological digs thousands of years old from Native American tribes, such as the Calusa Indian burial mound and the famous “Marco Cat” found at the Frank Cushing Archaeological Site.

The uniquely habitable islet was home to nearly 15,000 residents in the 2000 census, but census data to be released on December 21, 2010 is expected to show some growth from those figures. The real estate boom led to growth from the Naples, Florida metro area, with many exclusive homes being built during that period. With the housing price pullback that followed, bargain hunters have found exclusive Marco Island real estate parcels that are priced very attractively. In fact, Marco Island condos and foreclosures are some of the best priced listings available on the market.

Prices on Marco Island homes at the time of this writing range from about $70,000 for a 460 s.f. condo to $10,500,000 for a 11,000+ s.f. luxurious estate. There is an abundance of properties on the island with water frontage, and many have private docks for easy access to the pristine Gulf waters.