Pull up four different real estate data sources for Bonita Springs this week and you will get four different median prices, all labeled current, all technically true. Movoto has homes listed at a median of $649,000 in August 2026. Zillow's Home Value Index puts the typical home at $590,806 as of July 31. A market tracker pulling straight from recorded MLS closings shows a median sale price of $550,000 as of late August, down 2.2 percent from a year earlier. Narrow that same tracker to the twelve months of actual closed sales ending July 29 and the number drops again, to $480,450.
That is a spread of nearly $170,000 on the same city, in the same six-week window, with no source lying to you. They are measuring different things. Movoto counts what sellers are asking. Zillow runs an algorithm across every parcel whether it sold or not. The closings-based tracker counts only recorded sales, weighted toward whatever mix of homes happened to change hands. None of them are wrong. None of them are the number you need either.
Here is the more useful question if you are actually comparing two Bonita Springs listings this fall: does either house carry a Community Development District assessment or a deeded club membership, and if so, how much does that add on top of whatever price the two of you eventually agree on. That number does not show up in any median. It shows up on the closing disclosure, and it can separate two identically priced homes by five figures a year.
The Assessment That Doesn't Care About Your Homestead Exemption
A Community Development District, or CDD, is a special-purpose local government created under Florida law to finance and maintain infrastructure in a planned community. It shows up on your Lee County tax bill as a non-ad valorem assessment, a separate line from your regular property tax. Two things about it surprise buyers who are new to Southwest Florida.
First, a CDD assessment typically has two parts. One is an operating and maintenance charge that the district's board resets every year based on its adopted budget. The other is a capital assessment that pays down bonds the district issued to build roads, drainage, and amenities in the first place, and that piece is fixed for the life of the bond, often 15 to 30 years, unless you pay it off early.
Second, and this is the part that catches people off guard: neither the homestead exemption nor Florida's Save Our Homes cap touches a CDD assessment. Those protections apply to ad valorem property tax. A CDD is a separate, fixed non-ad valorem charge, and it stays exactly the same whether the house is a primary residence or not.
You can see the mechanics play out in real board decisions. The Bayside and Bay Creek CDDs, which cover Pelican Landing, held a joint public hearing in September 2025 where the district manager reported a Bay Creek general fund assessment increase of about $73 per door and a Bayside assessment increase of $13.23 plus another $6.78 per door. The same meeting covered a City of Bonita Springs traffic project at Pelican Landing Parkway and US 41, which needed a stormwater permit modification from the South Florida Water Management District before the district could sign off. That is the kind of detail a home inspection will never surface and a median price will never hint at, but it is exactly what a buyer in that community will be paying toward for years.
A few miles away, the Brooks of Bonita Springs I and II CDD adopted its own FY2026 budget with a net assessment levy near $3.5 million spread across its homeowners, funding everything from irrigation contracts to streetlight power bills to the tax collector's own 1.5 percent collection fee. Every homeowner in that district is paying into that budget whether they use the amenities it funds or not.
If you can pay off the capital portion of a CDD assessment, the operating and maintenance charge does not go away. It continues every year for as long as the district maintains the infrastructure, because someone still has to mow the medians and run the irrigation pumps.
The Deed That Comes With a Golf Membership Attached
CDDs are not the only carrying cost hiding behind a purchase price. Bonita Springs has a cluster of bundled golf communities where club membership is not optional and not separate from the real estate. It is written into the deed.
Bonita National Golf and Country Club is the clearest example. Every home there is deeded with either a Social membership or a Golf and Social membership, and the club states plainly that a Social membership cannot be upgraded to Golf after closing. If you buy a Social-deeded home and later decide you want year-round golf access, your only option is to sell and buy a different, Golf-deeded property. Buyers commonly report golf association dues running roughly $2,765 a year plus about $860 in golf reserves, a one-time capital contribution near $4,000 due at closing, and master HOA fees around $4,141 a year plus another $465 in reserves. Add it up and a Golf-deeded home there can carry more than $8,000 a year in mandatory dues before insurance, taxes, or anything else.
Spring Run at The Brooks runs a similar bundled model. Golf membership comes with every home there, and the community's 2025-2026 membership sheet lists annual fees of $9,159, which folds in capital, reserve, and project funds, plus a $725 prepaid food-and-beverage minimum and a separate fiber internet charge. Spring Run is sold out of new construction, so buyers there are working entirely in the resale market, where the membership terms are already locked in and worth confirming before an offer goes in, not after.
Compare that to a listing in Bonita Shores, closer to the coast, where one recent home advertised no HOA fee at all and only an optional membership to the Bonita Shores Club, which offers a community boat ramp and clubhouse for those who want it. Same city. No mandatory dues stack whatsoever.
What Two Otherwise Similar Homes Can Actually Cost
| Scenario | Purchase price range | Recurring dues on top |
|---|---|---|
| Bundled golf home, Golf-deeded (Bonita National-type) | Comparable | ~$8,000+/yr club dues, plus one-time capital contribution at closing |
| Bundled golf home, Social-deeded, same community | Comparable | Lower dues, but no path to golf access without selling and rebuying |
| Home inside an active CDD (Pelican Landing, Brooks-area) | Comparable | Non-ad valorem CDD assessment, resets annually, not reduced by homestead exemption |
| No-HOA, no-CDD home (parts of Bonita Shores) | Comparable | Optional club membership only, no mandatory recurring charge |
The purchase prices across these four rows can land in the same bracket. The annual carrying cost cannot. That gap is the real number a buyer needs, and it is the one none of the median-price sources are built to show.
What This Means If You're Comparing Listings
Before you write an offer on anything in Bonita Springs that sits inside a gated or golf-affiliated community, get three documents in hand, not just the listing sheet:
- The most recent CDD non-ad valorem assessment detail from the Lee County Tax Collector's parcel record, which shows whether a capital assessment is still outstanding and what the current operating and maintenance charge is
- The club's current membership and dues sheet if the home is in a bundled community, confirmed directly with the club rather than relied on secondhand
- The HOA's most recent adopted budget and any special assessment notices, since a fee quoted on an old listing may not reflect what the association actually voted on this year
You can look up whether a specific Bonita Springs parcel carries a CDD directly through the Lee County Tax Collector, which lists non-ad valorem assessments on the real property tax detail page for any address.
A Few Straight Answers
Does a CDD assessment ever go away? The capital portion can be paid off early through the district's bond trustee, which typically requires a formal payoff letter. The operating and maintenance portion continues every year the district exists, because it funds ongoing upkeep, not debt.
Can I upgrade a Social membership to Golf later at Bonita National? No. The membership type is deeded to the property. The only way to move from Social to Golf access is to purchase a different home that already carries the Golf designation.
Is a CDD the same thing as an HOA? No. A CDD is a unit of local government created under Florida law with the power to issue bonds and levy assessments. An HOA is a private association. Many Bonita Springs communities carry both, and they show up as separate line items.
Does the median price tell me anything useful at all? It tells you the general price tier of the market at a point in time. It tells you nothing about what sits on top of that price once you're inside a specific community, which is where the real cost comparison happens.
If you're weighing two Bonita Springs communities against each other, or trying to figure out what a specific CDD or club membership actually costs before you write an offer, Jodi Hanson can walk through the assessment history, club dues sheet, and HOA budget with you before you fall for the wrong number. Get Access to Our Private Listings.
