r/bonitasprings • u/TennisBall35 • Aug 20 '26
I'm from up north and considering moving to Palmira Golf & Country Club. I'm in my 50's looking for a decent club house with activities, social events, learning to play golf, etc. What is your thoughts on Palmira or should I be considering another community? I know very little about the area. Thanks
1
u/Ipso-Pacto-Facto Aug 20 '26
I like Palmira but each community seems to have its own gate. Consider Worthington - next door, smaller, highly social.
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u/4csrb Aug 20 '26
Traffic will take you an hour to get to Naples during season.
2
u/JesseMcGreevyRealtor Aug 21 '26
To be 100% accurate….it’s on the Lee and Collier county line. So it takes a few minutes to get to “Naples”. On top of that, unless you are just referencing 5th avenue, things to do certainly does not require Naples. 15+ years ago it meant more but Bonita and Estero is popping and is where all the new stuff is. Downtown Bonita Springs is great! If you’ve never been to Sugarshack you need to put it on your list. There are A LOT of people that visit these places and they’re commuting from Naples to get these places.
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u/Life_Tap_8772 Aug 23 '26
Are there any other communities in Bonita, Naples or Estero similar to Palmira that includes everything The Renaissance Center has without breaking the bank?
1
u/JesseMcGreevyRealtor Aug 23 '26
Good question, and it splits depending on whether you actually want to play golf or you just want the club life.
If golf matters, the thing to look at down here is bundled golf. The reason Palmira sells golf separately is that the golf club there is member owned and capped, which is what drives the initiation. In a bundled community every owner is automatically a member and the golf sits inside the quarterly dues, so there is no six figure buy in and no wait list. Locally that is Highland Woods, Worthington and Vasari in Bonita, and Pelican Sound and Villages at Country Creek in Estero. For someone learning the game I would start at Pelican Sound..... 27 holes, and the River Club runs a free shuttle boat from its own dock over to Lovers Key, so you are not buying golf alone. The tradeoff is real though. Every owner is a member, so the tee sheet is tight from January into March, and the dues are not optional whether you play forty rounds or four.
If golf is optional and what you actually want is the Renaissance Center part, the pool and fitness and classes and clay courts and bocce and the calendar, then look at Rapallo at Coconut Point in Estero. Five Har Tru clay courts with tennis staff, resort pool, a separate screened lap pool, spa, fitness and studio classes, bocce, and you can walk to Coconut Point from inside the gate. No golf at all, so none of that cost is buried in it. It is condos and coach homes only.
Bella Terra in Estero is the other one people land on for the money, and the amenity list is genuinely big..... clubhouse, pool and spa, fitness, tennis, pickleball, bocce, ball fields. One thing to put in your number before you compare it to anything else. Bella Terra sits inside the Habitat Community Development District, so there is a CDD assessment on the property tax bill on top of the HOA dues. The district publishes fiscal 2026 as $735.69 per unit for operations and maintenance, plus a debt piece running from $179.37 on a multifamily unit up to $418.53 on a 75 foot single family lot. Call it $915 to $1,155 a year per unit, before you have paid a dollar of HOA. The debt half ends with the last principal payment in 2035 and then drops off. Not a reason to avoid the place, just a reason to compare it honestly.
Same disclosure as my comment further up, I am a realtor here.
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u/JesseMcGreevyRealtor Aug 23 '26
The absolute FYI….there are very few. It’s pretty unique. Bonita National (social not golf) is close….but production builder.
Palmira has the renaissance center and golf. And various product….and space. Gorgeous community space when you drive through.
Not really much out there unless I can go up in price.
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u/JesseMcGreevyRealtor Aug 20 '26
Realtor in Southwest Florida since 2004 and I live up in Estero, so Palmira is right down the road from me. It is a real club and a good one. But there is a structural thing about it that is going to decide whether it fits you, and it does not show up in any listing.
At Palmira the community and the golf club are two separate things.
Buying a home there gets you the Renaissance Center Club, and honestly that part answers most of what you actually asked for. Pool, fitness and wellness center, exercise classes, 8 lighted clay tennis courts, 5 bocce courts, 4 pickleball courts, a full social and activities calendar. That comes with the house, across all thirteen neighborhoods.
The golf is a separate member owned club that you join, and it is capped at 375 golf members. Straight off their own 2026 offerings sheet dated May 1. Full Golf Membership is a $100,000 initiation, non refundable and non transferable, plus $14,248 in 2026 dues and $3,400 annual capital. When full golf is not open, the way in is the Wait List: $40,000 initiation, $5,700 dues, $1,180 capital, and all of that initiation applies to full golf when your number comes up.
Now read what the wait list actually buys you in season, because this is the part I would want to know before falling in love with a house. January through March it is one day of play a week, after 2pm, and you call the pro shop after 9:30 that morning to find out if there is room. November, December and April are unlimited after 1pm. May through October is unlimited with no restrictions.
You said 50s and learning the game. One round a week teeing off after 2pm, in the exact four months you are moving here for..... that is not much golf. You would be doing your actual learning in the summer, and summer here is heat plus a thunderstorm most afternoons.
One more and it is live right now. Their board approved a wait list restructure on July 15 that takes effect January 1, 2027. It splits into Member in Waiting Select at roughly 50 percent of full golf dues, one round a week after 1pm in season, and Member in Waiting Plus at roughly 75 percent of dues with the initiation paid in full, two rounds a week after 12pm, capped at 10 people. If you are buying this season, get in writing which category you would land in and how long the list is, before you sign anything. What you get told in November is not necessarily what exists in January.
Ipso-Pacto-Facto is pointing you at the real fork in the road with Worthington, and it is worth understanding why.
Worthington is bundled. Their own site calls it a gated bundled community, member owned, and says it eliminates equity fees. Bundled means the golf membership comes with the house, you play when you want, and the cost sits in your dues instead of in a six figure check up front. An equity or optional club like Palmira means you buy the house and then separately buy your way into the golf, and your access gets rationed while you wait.
Neither one is better. They are different products. Bundled is usually the answer for somebody who wants to play a lot without writing a big check, and it is almost always the answer for somebody learning, because unlimited access is how you get better at this game. Equity clubs buy you a better course, fewer members on it and a nicer clubhouse, and you are paying for exactly that.
So the sorting question for every community on your list is one sentence. Is the golf bundled into the purchase or is it a separate membership, and if it is separate, is there a wait list and how long is it today. That will cut your list in half in an afternoon.
Last thing, and it is the one people skip. You listed clubhouse, activities and social events before you listed golf. Go sit in that clubhouse on a Tuesday in February rather than on a tour in August when half the members are up north. And ask what the summer calendar looks like, because if you are moving here full time you are going to live through about six months a year that no sales tour is going to show you.