Fort Worth vs Cape Coral: which should you move to?
Fort Worth or Cape Coral? Housing, rent, crime, climate, income, taxes and transit, side by side, from each city's own published figures. Written for someone deciding where to live, not for a ranking.
Fort Worth
Cape Coral
The fastest-growing US city of more than a million and the second-fastest of more than 200,000, 1,028,117 people and 236,264, with two of the three lowest transit shares on this site, priced in US dollars in states with no income tax, so the figures net directly, though a week apart: Fort Worth at Freddie Mac's 7.03% for 24 September 2026 and Cape Coral at 7.28% for 1 October. Both prices are medians of single-family houses sold, over different areas: the NTREIS median inside Fort Worth, $327,000, and the Royal Palm Coast Realtor Association's median for its Cape Coral region, $389,950, because none is published for the City of Cape Coral. Mortgage, property tax and insurance come to about $2,516 a month in Fort Worth and $3,056 in Cape Coral, or $3,004 at the same rate, roughly 37% of Fort Worth's median household income of $82,503 and 43% of Cape Coral's $85,584. Zillow's index keeps the order, $295,800 for the City of Fort Worth, and Zillow's index for the City of Cape Coral stood at $335,825. A homesteaded owner pays about 1.38% of the median in Cape Coral against 1.54% in Fort Worth, though the City of Cape Coral's fire, stormwater and solid waste assessments, about $1,080 a year, bring its bill to about 1.65%, and insurance is budgeted at $475 a month against $350. On FBI counts two years apart, Cape Coral's 2023 against Fort Worth's 2025, Cape Coral is lower on every line, 122 violent offenses per 100,000 against 375 and two homicides against 78. Choose Fort Worth to own for about $540 a month less, for a job market about four times the size, aerospace, airlines and freight rail, and DFW. Choose Cape Coral for low crime, a far lower uninsured rate, an 18.2 C January and no 100F days, and price flood cover and the lot's utility assessments first.
| Measure | Fort Worth | Cape Coral | Advantage |
|---|---|---|---|
| City population | 1,028,117 (2025) | 236,264 (2025) | Not directly comparable |
| Metro population | 8,477,157 (2025) | 875,607 (2025) | Not directly comparable |
| Five-year growth Growth is pressure on rents and roads as much as it is opportunity, so it is reported without a winner. | 11.9% (2020-2025) | 21.8% (2020-2025) | Not directly comparable |
What a home costs in each
The figures the two cities' rent-versus-buy and mortgage calculators run on, read from the same tables.
| Measure | Fort Worth | Cape Coral | Advantage |
|---|---|---|---|
| Benchmark home price MLS® HPI or equivalent benchmark. Lower is treated as the advantage, which is the buyer's view rather than the owner's. | $327,000 (August 2026) | $389,950 (August 2026) | Fort Worth |
| Detached house benchmark Fort Worth and Cape Coral publish a single house index rather than a composite, so the two rows repeat. | $327,000 | $389,950 | Fort Worth |
| Apartment or condominium benchmark | $330,000 | $191,729 | Cape Coral |
| Two-bedroom rent | $1,317/mo (median, September 2026) | $1,186/mo (median, September 2026) | Cape Coral |
| One-bedroom rent | $1,141/mo | $1,032/mo | Cape Coral |
| Two-bedroom rent against median income A year of two-bedroom rent as a share of the median household income below. A household paying the median rent out of the median income is a fiction, but it is the same fiction in both columns and it crosses currencies. | 19.2% of a year's income | 16.6% of a year's income | Cape Coral |
| Mortgage payment on the benchmark, 20% down 30-year amortization on American monthly compounding, the convention in both. | $1,746/mo at 7.03% | $2,134/mo at 7.28% | Fort Worth |
| Price to household income Benchmark price divided by the median household income below. A ratio is comparable across currencies; the dollars are not. | 4.0× | 4.6× | Fort Worth |
| Property tax on the benchmark home The effective rate on market value, which is what the two rates have in common and what the Advantage column is decided on; the bills are in each city's own dollars. | $5,046/yr (1.543%, 2025) | $5,362/yr (1.375%, 2025) | Cape Coral |
| Transfer tax on the benchmark home Compared as a share of the price. Where the seller pays it, it is a cost of leaving rather than arriving. | None | $2,730 (seller pays) | Fort Worth |
| Rent control A cap protects a sitting tenant and does nothing for the next lease, so neither column is simply better. | Forbidden by state law | Forbidden by state law | Not directly comparable |
Fort Worth: About 1.54% of value for a homesteaded owner, worked out on the $327,000 median single-family sale price. A house in the City of Fort Worth and Fort Worth ISD, the school district more of the city's residents live in than any other, is taxed by six units for 2025, which add to 2.18908 per $100 before any exemption. Each takes its own homestead exemption off the appraised value first, except one: Fort Worth ISD takes the state's $140,000 and nothing more, Tarrant County College 1% with the state's $5,000 floor, Tarrant County, the City and JPS Health Network 20% each, and the Tarrant Regional Water District, which pays for the Fort Worth Floodway, none at all. So Tarrant County levies 0.1862 per $100 on $261,600 after an exemption of $65,400, $487; City of Fort Worth levies 0.67 per $100 on $261,600 after an exemption of $65,400, $1,753; Fort Worth ISD levies 1.0291 per $100 on $187,000 after an exemption of $140,000, $1,924; Tarrant County College levies 0.11228 per $100 on $322,000 after an exemption of $5,000, $362; JPS Health Network levies 0.165 per $100 on $261,600 after an exemption of $65,400, $432; Tarrant Regional Water District levies 0.0265 per $100 on the full $327,000, with no homestead exemption, $87. The six come to $5,044 a year, 1.54% of the price. Without a homestead, as a landlord or a buyer who never files, the same house owes $7,158. In Keller ISD, the district the second most residents live in, the school line is 1.0852 per $100 after the same $140,000, and the same house comes to $5,149, 1.57%. On $295,800, Zillow's August 2026 value for a typical Fort Worth home, the Fort Worth ISD stack comes to $4,425, 1.50%, lower because the school district's flat exemption is a larger share of a cheaper house. These are the 2025 rates, the bills due by 31 January 2026. The City has since adopted 0.70565 for 2026, but when these figures were retrieved the Tarrant County Tax Assessor-Collector's table and the appraisal district's still ran to 2025, so the calculators stay on 2025 until all six units' 2026 rates are published. Cape Coral: About 1.38% of the price for a homesteaded owner, worked out on the $389,950 single-family median for the Royal Palm Coast Realtor Association's Cape Coral region, which is lower than the 15.3806 mills a house in the City of Cape Coral is charged because of Florida's homestead exemption rather than any assessment lag. Thirteen levies make it: Lee County 3.7623 for general revenue; the Lee County School District 5.3190 (2.2480 set by its board and 3.0710 by state law); the City 5.1471 for operations and 0.1608 for its voted parks bond; the county's All Hazards Protection District 0.0693 and Library District 0.4218; the South Florida Water Management District 0.0948, 0.1026 for the Okeechobee basin and 0.0327 for the Everglades Construction Project; the Hyacinth Control District 0.0192; the Mosquito Control District 0.2116; and the West Coast Inland Navigation District 0.0394, for 2025. There is no fire district line: the City pays for fire service with an assessment instead. The school lines are charged on the price less $25,000, $364,950, and the rest on the price less a second slice as well, $339,950 on the base amounts, so a homesteaded buyer's first bill is about $5,362. Without a homestead, as a landlord or a buyer who never files, the same house owes $5,998. That second slice is indexed to inflation: the Department of Revenue published $25,722 for 2025, which brings the same bill to $5,354; this page uses the $25,000 base, like every Florida page on this site and like the Lee County Property Appraiser's own pamphlet. For 2026 the Council capped the City's operating rate at 5.1988, the rolled-back rate, and set the parks bond levy at 0.1554. The exemption is not automatic: you file with the property appraiser by 1 March. Three City assessments come on the same bill and no exemption reduces them: for 2025-26, fire service at $349.32 a parcel plus $3.47 for each $5,000 of structure value, $540.17 on a house whose structure is valued at $275,000; stormwater at $156; and solid waste at $384.25, about $1,080 a year together. The seller's tax bill is not a guide to yours. Save Our Homes caps a homesteaded property's assessed value at 3% growth a year, and that cap resets to full market value the January after the sale, so a long-tenured owner can be taxed on a fraction of what you will be taxed on for the same house. Ask the property appraiser what the assessment would be at your purchase price, not what the current bill is.
How safe each city is, by the numbers it publishes
Police-reported figures for the most recent year each force or statistics agency has released. Rates describe a whole city or metro area, and the spread between neighbourhoods inside one city is usually wider than the gap between the two cities.
| Measure | Fort Worth | Cape Coral | Advantage |
|---|---|---|---|
| Crime Severity Index Statistics Canada's weighted index for the metropolitan area, where 100 is Canada in 2006. American cities have no equivalent series. | Not published | Not published | Not directly comparable |
| Violent crime per 100,000 | 375 (2025) | 122 (2023) | Cape Coral |
| Property crime per 100,000 | 2,226 (2025) | 918 (2023) | Cape Coral |
| Homicides Counts, not rates, and a single year in a small city moves a long way on chance alone. What each figure covers is under the table. | 78 (2025) | 2 (2023) | Not directly comparable |
On the FBI's definitions, violent offenses in Fort Worth went from 5,428 in 2021 to 4,876 in 2022, 4,849 in 2023, 4,641 in 2024 and 3,859 in 2025, a 17% drop in the last year and 29% in four, and property offenses from 25,186 to 26,275, 26,098 and a peak of 27,290 in 2024, then 22,886, 16% below it. Motor vehicle theft rose from 3,687 in 2021 to 5,157 in 2024 and fell to 3,616 in 2025, down 30%. In 2025 the CDE shows aggravated assaults down 18% (3,230 to 2,656), rapes down 18% (613 to 505), robberies down 15% (726 to 620), burglaries down 16% and larcenies down 12%, while murders rose 8% (72 to 78), the one violent measure that went up. Eddie Garcia, Dallas's former police chief, took over the department in September 2025 after months without a permanent chief, and FWPD's own figures for January through August 2026 against the same months of 2025 show robberies down from 436 to 269 and aggravated assaults from 1,842 to 1,557 as well as the drop in murders (WFAA). The 2025 CDE counts were read on 30 September 2026 from a feed last refreshed on 15 September and can still be revised.
What the rates cover: Computed: 3,859 violent offenses (murder, rape, robbery and aggravated assault) in the FBI Crime Data Explorer's summarized data for the Fort Worth Police Department (ORI TX2201200) in calendar 2025, divided by the 1,028,117 Vintage 2025 city population. On the CDE's own agency population of 1,030,410 the rate is also 375. That is the lowest of the Texas cities this site compares, against 532 in San Antonio, 577 in Dallas and 890 in Houston. No FWPD total on this definition was found in anything fetched; the city's quarterly crime reports, as the Fort Worth Star-Telegram described them, count crimes against persons, a broader group that includes assaults and sex offenses, and put them 12% lower in the first half of 2025 than a year earlier.
Homicides: 78 murders and nonnegligent manslaughters in 2025 in the FBI CDE, against 72 in 2024, about 7.6 per 100,000 on the city population. Spectrum News, reading city data in February 2026, also put the year's homicides 8% above 2024. Most of the rise came early: the city's quarterly reports counted 20 homicides in January through March 2025 against 9 a year earlier and 43 in the first half against 31 (Fort Worth Star-Telegram). The CDE series has fallen from 118 in 2021, and 2026 has turned the other way: FWPD counted 36 murders through 31 August against 54 in the same months of 2025 (WFAA).
Down, on every count that exists, though no FBI or state count covers 2025. On the FBI CDE's figures violent offenses fell from 403 in 2022 to 277 in 2023, about 185 and 122 per 100,000 on each year's Vintage 2025 population, and January to October 2024 brought 236, which at that pace would be about 2023's level. FDLE's incident-based file, which counts somewhat differently (its forcible sex offenses include fondling, and its assault totals run higher), shows the same direction: 420 violent offenses in 2022, 357 in 2023 and 243 in 2024, about 104 per 100,000 in the last year, and property offenses from 2,555 in 2023 to 1,980 in 2024. For 2025 there is only the department's own word: it reported overall crime down 28% in the first half of the year, 1,487 cases against 2,076, with thefts down from 850 to 612 and no homicides (Cape Coral Police Department), and its 2025 annual report claims a 28% reduction for the year and calls the city the second-safest in Florida of those over 150,000, without publishing the counts behind either. The CDE counts were read on 2 October 2026 from a feed last refreshed on 15 September, and why the department's data stop at October 2024 was not found.
What the rates cover: Computed: 277 violent offenses (murder, rape, robbery and aggravated assault) in the FBI Crime Data Explorer's summarized data for the Cape Coral Police Department (ORI FL0360200) in calendar 2023, divided by the 227,458 Vintage 2025 estimate for July 2023; on the CDE's own agency population of 228,672 the rate is 121. 2023 is used, not the 2025 the other Florida profiles use, because it is the last calendar year the FBI carries in full for this department: the CDE has every month of 2022 and 2023, January to October 2024, and nothing from November 2024 on, and the Florida Department of Law Enforcement's incident-based (FIBRS) offense file, the state system that feeds the FBI, has the department for every month of 2022 to 2024 and not at all for 2025 or 2026. No FBI rate exists for 2025, as for Orlando after 2022. On 2023's figure Cape Coral has the lowest violent crime rate of the Florida cities this site compares, a little below Port St. Lucie's 130 for 2025, a third of Miami's 359 and a quarter of St. Petersburg's 502.
Homicides: 2 murders and nonnegligent manslaughters in 2023 in the FBI CDE, about 0.9 per 100,000 on the city population. The CDE series is 4 in 2022, 2 in 2023 and 5 in January to October 2024; FDLE's file has 4, 4 and 5 for the three full years. The department reported no homicides in the first half of 2025, against three in the first half of 2024 (Cape Coral Police Department). Port St. Lucie had 4 in 2025, St. Petersburg 9 and Tampa 17.
Winters, summers and what the weather can do to a house
| Measure | Fort Worth | Cape Coral | Advantage |
|---|---|---|---|
| January mean | 7.7 °C | 18.2 °C | Not directly comparable |
| July mean | 29.5 °C | 28.4 °C | Not directly comparable |
| Precipitation a year | 898 mm | 1,458 mm | Not directly comparable |
| Snowfall a year | 4 cm | 0 cm | Not directly comparable |
| Sunshine a year | 2,850 hours | Not published | Not directly comparable |
NOAA NCEI 1991-2020 normals for Fort Worth Meacham International Airport (station USW00013961), the city-owned general aviation field inside the city about 5 miles north-northwest of downtown: January mean 45.8F, July mean 85.1F, annual mean 65.9F, 35.34 in of precipitation. Meacham's normals carry no snowfall, so the 1.6 in of snow stored here is the normal at Dallas Fort Worth International Airport (USW00003927), about 20 miles northeast of downtown, where the National Weather Service keeps the metro's official record. August is the warmest month by a tenth of a degree at 85.2F, with a mean high of 95.9F; July's mean high is 95.7F and January's mean low is 35.3F. October (4.46 in) is the wettest month, then May and June (4.02 in each), and January (2.05 in) the driest. The normals count 105.5 days a year at 90F or above, 24.1 at 100F or above and 32.8 nights at or below freezing. DFW Airport averages 46.3F in January and 85.7F in July with 37.01 in of rain, 20.3 days at 100F or above and 29.2 nights at or below freezing. Converted here to 7.7 C, 29.5 C, 898 mm and 4.1 cm. Those 24.1 days at 100F are more than Love Field's 22.4 for Dallas and fewer only than Austin's 28.7 among the Texas cities this site compares, although the July mean is 1.2 C below Dallas's. Sunshine hours are the older 1961-1990 NCDC means that Current Results lists for Dallas (2,850 hours, 61% of possible, and 135 clear days); it lists no separate Fort Worth figure, and the 1991-2020 normals do not include sunshine.
Hazards: Hail is the costly routine hazard. On the evening of 5 May 1995 a supercell dropped hail up to softball size on Mayfest, the outdoor festival on the bank of the Trinity River, where more than 10,000 people were caught in the open: more than 400 were hurt and 60 seriously enough to be hospitalized, though no one died at the festival. The storms went on to kill one driver in a swollen creek in western Tarrant County and 19 people in Dallas County, most of them in floodwater, and the National Weather Service puts the damage at about $2 billion, one of the costliest hailstorms in history. Cotality counted more than 235,000 Texas homes hit by damaging hail in 2025, far more than in any other state, with the risk concentrated in Dallas-Fort Worth and the other Texas Triangle metros. Tornadoes have hit the center of the city. At 6:18 pm on 28 March 2000 a tornado touched down near Castleberry High School, about 4 miles west of downtown, and tracked east along West 7th Street, nearly destroying the Cash America building and heavily damaging Mallick Tower before it weakened over downtown, where debris broke 80% of the windows in the Bank One building and 1,300 of the 5,000 in the Union Pacific Resources building. Two people died and about 80 were injured, 6 of them hospitalized; the Texas Tech damage survey rated it F2. A second tornado later that evening did F3 damage in Arlington and Grand Prairie without a death, and NOAA counts the storms of 28 and 29 March across the South at $690 million ($1.27 billion in 2024 dollars). Flooding shaped the city's form. In May 1949 a night of 6 to 12 in of rain overflowed the Trinity, killing 10 people and leaving more than 13,000 homeless, and the Army Corps of Engineers later built the 27 miles of levees of the Fort Worth Floodway, which the Tarrant Regional Water District maintains. The Corps' $1.16 billion Central City project, known locally as Panther Island, is to carry the river around downtown through new bypass channels and protect more than 2,400 acres; work on the northern half of the channel is due to begin late in 2026 and the project to be finished in 2032. Flash floods on the creeks are the more frequent danger: on 21 and 22 August 2022, 9.56 in (243 mm) fell at Meacham over the two days, 5.11 in (130 mm) of it on the 22nd, and the National Weather Service measured 8.41 in in Fort Worth, with flooding reported from Como and the John T. White neighborhood to West 7th Street; the city's 2016 floodplain plan counted more than $1 billion of stormwater improvements needed. Heat is the constant. The normals give Meacham 24.1 days a year at or above 100F (37.8 C). The summer of 2026 has been among its hottest: 55 days at 100F or above through 27 September, fourth in its record after 72 in 2011, 64 in 2023 and 62 in 1998, and 31 in a row from 3 August to 2 September, the longest run it has recorded; its highest reading is 112F (44.4 C), on 12 July 1998 and 4 September 2000. At DFW Airport the National Weather Service counts 52 days of 100F in 2026 through 22 September, tied for fifth, against the record of 71 in 2011. Cold is rare and badly handled. Winter Storm Uri took Meacham to -2F (-18.9 C) on 16 February 2021, tying 31 January 1949 for the lowest in its record, and DFW Airport also fell to -2F, the lowest there since 1953, with 5.0 in (12.7 cm) of snow over the storm. ERCOT cut power across the state grid from 15 to 18 February and about 4.5 million customers lost it at the worst; Texas counted 246 deaths from the storm, 11 of them in Tarrant County. In January 2026 Winter Storm Fern brought 2.4 in (6.1 cm) of snow and sleet to DFW Airport and a low of 11F (-11.7 C) at Meacham on the 25th.
NOAA NCEI 1991-2020 normals for Fort Myers Page Field (station USW00012835), the general aviation airport in Fort Myers about 9 miles east-southeast of the city's center across the Caloosahatchee River. No station inside Cape Coral has 1991-2020 normals, and of the two Fort Myers airports with full temperature and precipitation normals Page Field is the nearer; Southwest Florida International (USW00012894) is about 17 miles southeast and farther inland. January mean 64.7F, July mean 83.2F, annual mean 75.4F, 57.41 in of precipitation. Neither airport's normals carry snowfall, so the 0.0 in of snow stored here is the normal at the nearest cooperative station that has one, Punta Gorda 4 ESE (USC00087397), about 19 miles north. August is the warmest month at 83.4F, with a mean high of 91.7F; January's mean low is 54.3F. August (10.43 in), June (9.66 in) and July (9.38 in) are the wettest months, and June through September bring 38.47 in, 67% of the year; February and November (1.78 in each) are the driest. The normals count 120.3 days a year at 90F or above, none at 100F and 0.1 nights at or below freezing. Converted here to 18.2 C, 28.4 C, 1,458 mm and 0 cm. Southwest Florida International agrees closely: 64.6F in January, 82.7F in July, 53.39 in a year and 119.1 days at 90F. Cape Coral's January is the warmest of the Florida cities this site compares except Miami's (68.6F), two and a half degrees above St. Petersburg's 62.2F and Port St. Lucie's 62.3F, and its rain is second only to Miami's. Sunshine is not stored: Current Results' US city table, the source and 1961-1990 basis of the other US profiles' sunshine hours, lists no Fort Myers or Cape Coral station, and the 1991-2020 normals do not include sunshine; the 355 days of sunshine Wikipedia repeats is a promotional figure, not a measured total.
Hazards: Storm surge and wind from hurricanes are the defining hazards, and Hurricane Ian in 2022 is the measure of them. Ian came ashore on Cayo Costa, the barrier island off Pine Island west of the city, on 28 September 2022 with sustained winds of 130 kt (150 mph), a high category 4, and again near Punta Gorda an hour and a half later (National Hurricane Center). Its surge put 6 to 9 ft of water above ground in Pine Island, Cape Coral and the other communities at the mouth of the Caloosahatchee, and the US Geological Survey's sensors in Matlacha and Cape Coral were lost or destroyed before they could record a peak; the NOS tide gauge in downtown Fort Myers, across the river, measured 7.26 ft above mean higher high water. Storm surge killed 41 people, 36 of them in Lee County, and in Lee County at least 52,514 structures were affected, 5,369 destroyed and 14,245 with major damage; Ian did $112.9 billion of damage in the US, $109.5 billion of it in Florida, the costliest hurricane in the state's history (NHC). Page Field recorded a gust of 67 mph on 28 September before it stopped reporting; its highest gust since 2010 is 84 mph, on 10 September 2017. Heat is long rather than extreme: 120.3 days a year at 90F or above on the normals, almost twice St. Petersburg's 70.9 and Port St. Lucie's 66.8, and none at 100F (37.8 C). Page Field recorded 168 such days in 2023, the most in its record since 2010, and 134 in 2026 through 28 September. Frost is all but unknown: one night at or below 32F (0 C) since 2010, 31F on 11 January 2010, and a lowest reading of 34F in 2026 on 1 February.
What people earn and what the government takes
| Measure | Fort Worth | Cape Coral | Advantage |
|---|---|---|---|
| Median household income | $82,503 USD (2024) | $85,584 USD (2024) | Cape Coral |
| Unemployment rate | 4.6% (July 2026) | 5.2% (July 2026) | Fort Worth |
| Sales tax | 8.25% | 6.5% | Cape Coral |
| Top marginal income tax Federal plus provincial or state. The American figure leaves out payroll taxes and the cost of health insurance, both of which a Canadian household covers through the tax it pays here. | 37% | 37% | Even |
| Income tax on $100,000, single filer Computed from each jurisdiction's brackets at a single filer's $100,000 and rounded to the dollar, so a gap of a dollar is rounding rather than tax. Two cities in one province or state are shown as Even, because there the two cells describe the same tax and whatever separates them is method. | $13,449 USD | $13,449 USD | Even |
BLS counted 1,222,100 nonfarm jobs in the Fort Worth-Arlington-Grapevine Metropolitan Division in August 2026 (not seasonally adjusted, preliminary), up 17,800 or 1.5% on the year. Professional and business services grew fastest (+5.0%, to 159,300), then mining, logging and construction (+4.8%, to 92,100), leisure and hospitality (+4.4%, to 145,500) and transportation and warehousing (+2.1%, to 102,600), while financial activities (-2.0%), information (-1.8%) and government (-0.6%, to 136,000) shrank; federal employment fell 9.0%, from 16,700 to 15,200. Manufacturing held at 110,000, of which aerospace product and parts manufacturing was 23,600, up 1.3%. The seasonally adjusted series (SMS48231040000000001) was 1,223,400 in August 2026, 1.5% above August 2025. The Texas Comptroller credits Lockheed Martin with about 49,000 direct and indirect workers in Fort Worth and a $9 billion regional impact, and 25,579 direct employees across Texas, and counts 4,553 direct and 21,266 total jobs and $2.75 billion of state GDP for Naval Air Station Joint Reserve Base Fort Worth in 2025. Hillwood's annual report puts AllianceTexas's economic impact at $12.9 billion in 2025 and $142.9 billion since it opened in 1989, and Hillwood says the Comptroller has recognized it as the primary inland port for the southwestern United States. American Airlines, with 103,440 staff in 2024, and BNSF Railway, with about 36,000, are both headquartered in the city (Wikipedia).
Main sectors: Aerospace and defense (Lockheed Martin Aeronautics, which builds the F-35 at Air Force Plant 4; Bell Textron, headquartered in the city; Naval Air Station Joint Reserve Base Fort Worth, the former Carswell Air Force Base), Airlines and freight rail (American Airlines, headquartered in the city, with its largest hub at DFW Airport; BNSF Railway, headquartered in the city), Logistics and advanced manufacturing at AllianceTexas in far north Fort Worth, which Hillwood says holds 602 companies and 73,134 jobs, Trade, transportation and utilities, the division's largest sector by payroll jobs (289,300 in August 2026), Health care and education (JPS Health Network, Cook Children's Medical Center, Texas Christian University and its medical school).
Property tax is the local levy that matters. Tax Foundation puts Texas's effective property tax rate on owner-occupied homes at 1.40%, and school districts must exempt $140,000 of a homestead's value from their tax. On 15 September 2026 the City Council adopted a $3.33 billion operating budget for fiscal 2027 unanimously and raised the city's rate by 3.565 cents to 70.565 cents per $100 of taxable value on a 7 to 4 vote, to help close a $94 million shortfall. The city says the average homeowner's bill will still fall, by $8.19 to $1,643.64 on a home valued at $232,925, because the Tarrant Appraisal District has not reappraised residential property since 2024 and the average value dropped; the city's total taxable value rose only 0.89%, to $130.2 billion (Fort Worth Report, Community Impact, CBS Texas). The budget also raises stormwater, water, sewer, solid waste and environmental fees by about $7 a month for the average resident. The county, school district, JPS hospital district, Tarrant County College and other levies on the same bill belong to the housing layer.
BLS counted 311,300 nonfarm jobs in the Cape Coral-Fort Myers MSA in August 2026 (not seasonally adjusted, preliminary), up 1,500 or 0.5% on the year. Private education and health services (+1,500, or 2.8%, to 55,400) and leisure and hospitality (+1,500, or 3.8%, to 41,200) added the most, then professional and business services (+1,100, or 2.5%, to 45,900), while government lost 2,400 (-7.8%, to 28,500), all of it in local government (down 10.6% to 20,300), and mining, logging and construction 300 (to 40,900). The city's own employment picture is a commuter town's: the ten principal employers in its 2025 financial report, led by the school district (2,563), Lee Health (2,015), the City (1,969) and Publix (1,370), employ 10,442, about 9.5% of the people working in the city on the City's count, and the list is almost unchanged from 2016's except that a regional VA clinic and Lowe's have left it and the water park and the Westin have joined. Most residents work elsewhere: 54% of the city's workers (58,022 of 108,333) worked outside the city in 2024, though only 9.8% (10,604) outside Lee County, against 40% for Port St. Lucie. 16.3% worked from home, and the mean commute for the rest was 32 minutes, seven more than St. Petersburg's, with 11% spending an hour or more (ACS 2024 1-year, B08007, B08008, B08013, B08101 and B08303).
Main sectors: Construction and real estate: mining, logging and construction held 40,900 of the metro's 311,300 nonfarm jobs in August 2026, 13%, about twice the share in the Tampa-St. Petersburg metro, in a city still building out lots platted in the 1950s and 1960s and rebuilding after Ian; Home Depot (559) is among the city's ten largest employers, Health care: Lee Health, the county's hospital system and Cape Coral Hospital's operator, is the city's second-largest employer (2,015 staff in the city), in a metro sector (private education and health services, 55,400 jobs) that added 1,500 jobs over the year, Retail: Publix (1,370 staff in the city), Walmart and Sam's Club (700) and Home Depot, in a metro with 42,500 retail jobs, Public schools and government: the Lee County School District (2,563 staff in the city, the largest employer), the City of Cape Coral (1,969) and the City's own charter school system (371), while metro local government lost 2,400 jobs over the year, Leisure and tourism: Sun Splash Family Water Park (300) and the Westin resort (200) among the city's ten largest employers, boating on the canals, and the beaches of Sanibel and Fort Myers Beach nearby (leisure and hospitality, 41,200 metro jobs, up 3.8% on the year).
Property tax is the local levy that matters. Tax Foundation puts Florida's effective property tax rate on owner-occupied homes at 0.78%, and a homestead exemption takes as much as $50,000 off a permanent residence's taxable value, with the Save Our Homes limit on how fast its assessment can rise (Florida Department of Revenue). A house in the City of Cape Coral (Lee County taxing district 057) paid 15.3806 mills for 2025 on the Lee County Property Appraiser's millage book, of which the City's own rates are 5.1471 for operations and 0.1608 for its voted parks bond. The total is low partly because there is no fire district line: the City pays for fire service with a per-parcel assessment that, with stormwater and solid waste, comes on the same bill and is not reduced by any exemption. On 22 July 2026 the City Council voted 7 to 1 to cap the fiscal 2027 operating rate at 5.1988 mills, the rolled-back rate, on a taxable value of $33.1 billion, with final adoption set for 24 September (Gulfshore Business). The Royal Palm Coast Realtor Association's single-family median for its Cape Coral region was $389,950 in August 2026, up 6.1% from $367,500 a year earlier, while Zillow's typical home value for the city was $335,825, down 3.9%, and its observed rent $1,949; the bills, assessments, insurance and flood exposure that follow from them belong to the housing layer.
Whether you need a car
| Measure | Fort Worth | Cape Coral | Advantage |
|---|---|---|---|
| System | Trinity Metro buses (147 fixed-route and 76 demand-response vehicles), the 27.2-mile TEXRail commuter line with 9 stations from T&P Station downtown through North Richland Hills and Grapevine to DFW Airport Terminal B (opened January 2019), the Trinity Railway Express to Dallas run with DART, ZIPZONE on-demand zones and the downtown Blue Line circulator; Fort Worth is the only full member, with Forest Hill, Grapevine, North Richland Hills and River Oaks partial members | LeeTran, the Lee County Transit Department's bus system, serving Cape Coral, Fort Myers, Bonita Springs, Fort Myers Beach and much of unincorporated Lee County, Monday to Saturday from about 5 a.m. to 9:45 p.m. with reduced Sunday service and trolleys (Wikipedia). Wikipedia's Cape Coral article counts 18 fixed routes, six of them within Cape Coral. There is no passenger rail and no bus rapid transit, and the city is on a peninsula: it reaches Fort Myers and the rest of the county by two bridges across the Caloosahatchee, the Cape Coral Bridge, opened in 1964, and the Midpoint Memorial Bridge, and by road through North Fort Myers. Lee County and the City plan to replace the Cape Coral Bridge's 1964 westbound span with a $185 million six-lane project that also removes the toll booth on the Fort Myers side (Wikipedia). | Not directly comparable |
| Commute by public transit | 0.7% (2024) | 0.2% (2024) | Fort Worth |
| Walk or cycle to work | 1.1% (2024) | 1.0% (2024) | Fort Worth |
| Airport | Dallas Fort Worth International Airport (DFW), about 20 miles northeast of downtown Fort Worth and midway between the two cities, handled 85,660,127 passengers in 2025, 2.5% fewer than 2024's 87,817,864, per the airport's December 2025 traffic report; American Airlines, headquartered in Fort Worth, carried 82.6% of them, and TEXRail runs from downtown to Terminal B. Fort Worth Meacham International Airport, owned by the city about 5 miles north-northwest of downtown, has no scheduled airline service and serves general aviation; its 1933 American Airways hangar is on the National Register of Historic Places (Wikipedia). | Southwest Florida International Airport (RSW), owned by the Lee County Port Authority and opened in 1983 southeast of Fort Myers, about 17 miles from the city's center, handled a record 11,154,458 passengers in 2025, a little more than 1% above 2024's record (WGCU; Wikipedia), with Delta, Southwest, American and United the largest carriers. Page Field, in Fort Myers about 9 miles away, serves general aviation. | Not directly comparable |
Trinity Metro carried 6,180,600 unlinked trips in 2025, 4,554,400 of them by bus and 906,800 on TEXRail, and about 22,100 a weekday in the second quarter of 2026, 2,800 of them on TEXRail (APTA ridership reports, as cited by Wikipedia; APTA's PDFs refused the fetcher), against 30.7 million for VIA in San Antonio, 52.8 million for DART and 78.0 million for Houston's METRO. The Trinity Railway Express, which Trinity Metro runs with DART between downtown Fort Worth and downtown Dallas, carried 1,337,600 trips in 2025 (APTA, same source). The system is paid for by a half-cent sales tax Fort Worth has levied since 1984, half what DART's and METRO's cities pay. TEXRail runs every 30 minutes until 7 pm and hourly after, and a 2.1-mile extension to the Medical District on the Near Southside, estimated at about $167 million, is due to break ground by the end of 2026 and open in 2029 (Wikipedia).
LeeTran carried 1,969,906 unlinked trips in 2025 on the National Transit Database's monthly ridership file (Federal Transit Administration), 1,758,231 of them on its buses and the rest on demand-response service. That is less than half its peak of 4,222,649 in 2013 and below the 3,156,405 of 2019; ridership fell to about 1.9 to 2.0 million a year from 2020 and has stayed there, and January to August 2026 ran 2.3% above the same months of 2025. Wikipedia's figure for 2025, 1,831,800, counts a narrower set of services. For comparison, Port St. Lucie's Area Regional Transit carried 825,588 trips in 2025 and St. Petersburg's PSTA 10.4 million (their profiles, from the same file).
Health care, schools and what each city is like
Health care
Care is paid for through employer or marketplace insurance, Medicare and Medicaid, and Texas is one of the ten states that have not expanded Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act (KFF). It had the highest uninsured rate of any state in 2024: 16.7%, or 5,152,427 of 30,799,312 people, against 8.2% nationally and 12.0% in Georgia, the next highest, on the ACS 2024 1-year estimates. The City of Fort Worth's rate was 18.9% (189,692 of 1,003,516), Tarrant County's 16.9% and the metro's 16.2%. JPS Health Network, the Tarrant County Hospital District, runs John Peter Smith Hospital, the county's public hospital, a Level I trauma center and the only psychiatric emergency site in the county; on 16 April 2026 it broke ground on a $1.5 billion replacement hospital at South Main and East Morphy streets, part of a $2.5 billion building plan backed by an $800 million bond from 2018, which will take it from 582 beds to more than 740 when it opens in 2030 (Fort Worth Report). Cook Children's Medical Center has 452 licensed beds and a Level II pediatric trauma center (Wikipedia). TCU's Anne Burnett Marion School of Medicine took its first class in 2019. This file did not verify a wait time figure for primary or specialist care.
Education
Fort Worth is served by Fort Worth ISD and, in parts, by fourteen other districts, among them Keller, Northwest, Eagle Mountain-Saginaw, Crowley and Arlington (the 2020 Census school district map, as cited by Wikipedia). Fort Worth ISD is now under state control: after a campus received a fifth straight failing rating, Education Commissioner Mike Morath decided in October 2025 to intervene, and on 24 March 2026 he replaced the elected trustees' authority with a nine-member board of managers led by Pete Geren and named Peter Licata, formerly of Broward County, superintendent. It is the second-largest takeover in Texas history, after Houston ISD's. The board opened by saying roughly 63% of students do not read at grade level and 29% are proficient in math (Fort Worth Report). The district, built for 90,000 students, had 67,315 in 2025-26 on Texas Education Agency data and projected about 66,500 for 2026-27; it has lost more than 12,000 in five years and in May 2025 approved closing 18 campuses by June 2029 (CBS Texas). Texas Christian University (12,980 students in fall 2025) is about 4 miles from downtown, and the city also holds Texas Wesleyan University, UNT Health Fort Worth and Texas A&M University's law school and downtown campus.
Living there
Fort Worth has grown faster than any other US city of a million people: 11.9% since 2020, and 19,512 residents in 2024-25, a gain second only to Charlotte's; it passed a million in 2024. It is the western half of the Dallas-Fort Worth metro and works differently from Dallas: its economy leans on aircraft, airlines and freight, from the F-35 line at Lockheed Martin's plant and Bell's helicopters to the headquarters of American Airlines and BNSF and the warehouses and factories of AllianceTexas, and household income, at $82,503, is higher than in Dallas, Houston or San Antonio. It is built for the car: 74.9% of workers drive alone and 0.7% take transit, the lowest share of any city this site compares, though TEXRail runs to DFW Airport. Violent crime, at 375 per 100,000 on the FBI's counts, is the lowest of the Texas cities here. Summer is long and hot, with 24 days a year at 100F or above and 31 in a row in 2026, and hail and tornadoes are the costly weather. Texas takes no income tax, and 18.9% of residents have no health insurance. The open questions are the costs of growth: the council raised its property tax rate in September 2026 to cover a $94 million gap as appraisals stalled, the state took over the shrinking Fort Worth ISD in March 2026, and the Panther Island flood channels around downtown are not due until 2032.
Health care
Care is paid for through employer or marketplace insurance, Medicare and Medicaid, and Florida is one of the ten states that have not expanded Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act (KFF). Florida's uninsured rate was 10.9% in 2024, against 8.2% nationally, on the ACS 2024 1-year estimates; the City of Cape Coral's was 9.4% (21,762 of 232,206), below Lee County's 13.2% and close to Port St. Lucie's 9.9%. Hospital care in the county is Lee Health's: the system, which runs four acute care hospitals and two specialty hospitals, was a public special district until Lee County approved a mission agreement on 28 October 2024 and it became a private nonprofit, Lee Health System, Inc., on 1 November 2024, bound by that agreement to go on providing safety-net care (South Florida Hospital News). Its hospital in the city is Cape Coral Hospital, whose emergency department grew to 56 treatment spaces in January 2026, and Lee Health opened a walk-in care center at Bimini Square in south Cape Coral in late 2025 (South Florida Hospital News). Lee Health is the city's second-largest employer, with 2,015 staff in the city (City of Cape Coral). This file did not verify a bed count for Cape Coral Hospital or a wait time figure for primary or specialist care.
Education
The Lee County School District, the countywide district, counted 87,107 students in its own schools and 13,329 in charter schools in 2025-26, and lost 1,946 students from the year before, mainly to home education, private schools, other Florida districts and moves out of state or country; the zone that takes in Cape Coral was at 94% of capacity (Cape Coral Breeze). Its four high schools in the city are Cape Coral (late 1970s), Mariner (1987), Ida S. Baker (2005) and Island Coast (2008). The City runs its own municipal charter school system, the Oasis schools (Cape Coral Charter Schools on the City's employer list, 371 staff), with two elementary schools, a middle school and a high school open only to children who live in the city and charge no tuition (Wikipedia; City of Cape Coral). Higher education is across the river: Florida Gulf Coast University, established in 1991 and opened in 1997, with almost 15,000 students in 2017, and Florida SouthWestern State College, whose main campus is in Fort Myers (Wikipedia). Cape Coral Technical College, run by the school district, is in the city.
Living there
Cape Coral is a land sale that became the largest city between Tampa and Miami. In 1957 two Baltimore developers, Leonard and Jack Rosen, bought a 103-square-mile tract across the Caloosahatchee from Fort Myers for $678,000, and their Gulf American Land Corporation sold its lots at free-dinner sales events in 24 states, dug canals without state permits (which later bankrupted it) and paved streets ahead of the people (Wikipedia). The result, incorporated in 1970, is a grid of single-family houses on more than 400 miles of canals, more than any other city on earth by Wikipedia's account, some of them with access to the Gulf, and the same platted-lot history Port St. Lucie has on the other coast. It is as suburban as any of the Florida cities here: 79.2% of homes are owner-occupied, 0.2% of workers take transit, the median age is 48.0, the oldest of the seven, and more than half of its workers leave the city for work, nearly all of them for elsewhere in Lee County. It grew 21.8% from 2020 to 2025, second only to Port St. Lucie among large US cities, entirely on people moving in. Its household income, $85,584, is second to Port St. Lucie's; its violent crime rate, 122 per 100,000 in 2023, the last year the FBI has, is the lowest of the Florida cities here; and its sales tax, 6.5%, is the lowest. Its risk is the Gulf. Hurricane Ian came ashore on Cayo Costa, off Pine Island west of the city, in September 2022 at 150 mph, put 6 to 9 feet of water over the ground in Cape Coral and Pine Island, and drowned 36 people in Lee County in its surge.
Where each city wins, and where it loses
Both cities price in US dollars, though they were priced a week apart: Fort Worth at Freddie Mac's 7.03% for 24 September 2026 and Cape Coral at 7.28% for 1 October, so the mortgage lines differ by rate as well as price, and Cape Coral's is given at both. Both prices are medians of single-family houses sold in August 2026, though over different areas. Fort Worth's is the North Texas Real Estate Information System's median inside the city, $327,000, 0.9% below a year earlier, on 805 sales. The Cape Coral figure is the Royal Palm Coast Realtor Association's median for its Cape Coral region of the Southwest Florida MLS, $389,950 on 442 sales, 6.1% above a year earlier; no median is published for the City itself, and the board's region is the closest figure anyone publishes, with North Fort Myers and Pine Island counted as regions of their own. Zillow's index, which models every home in each city, keeps the order: it stood at $295,800 for the City of Fort Worth in August, 1.8% lower on the year, and Zillow's index for the City of Cape Coral stood at $335,825, 3.9% lower, a gap of about $40,000 against $62,950 on the medians. At 20% down, Fort Worth's $261,600 loan costs about $1,746 a month and a $311,960 loan on the board's Cape Coral region median about $2,134 at 7.28%, or $2,082 at 7.03%. Property tax is $5,044 a year in Fort Worth and about $5,362 in Cape Coral with a homestead, about 1.54% and 1.38% of the price, and insurance is budgeted at $350 and $475 a month, both estimates between published averages, the Fort Worth one raised by North Texas hail and the Cape Coral one for a Florida policy that covers wind with a separate hurricane deductible, its published averages running from $3,695 to $8,688 a year, and neither with a flood policy in it. The three lines come to about $2,516 and $3,056, roughly 37% and 43% of each city's 2024 median household income; at 7.03% Cape Coral's would be about $3,004. Of the $540 gap about $388 is the mortgage, $27 the property tax and $125 the insurance, and at the same rate the gap would be about $487. The rents are on the same series, Apartment List's September medians, though for the City of Fort Worth and for Lee County, since Apartment List publishes none for the City of Cape Coral: a one-bedroom at $1,141 and $1,032, a two-bedroom $1,317 and $1,186. Zillow's observed rent index, measured for each city, reverses that, $1,615 in Fort Worth and $1,949 in Cape Coral in August, about 23% and 27% of median income. Apartment List's index is of apartments, and a house rented out is not what it measures; the Census Bureau's 2024 median gross rent for the City of Cape Coral, $1,998, sits beside Zillow's.
The definitions match but the years do not. Both cities' figures are the FBI's summarized counts divided by Census Vintage 2025 populations, but Fort Worth's are for 2025 and Cape Coral's for 2023, the last full year the FBI carries for its police department: the Crime Data Explorer has nothing from the department after October 2024, the state's incident-based file has nothing for 2025, and why the reporting stops was not found. On those figures Cape Coral is the lower on every line. Its 277 violent offenses in 2023 come to 122 per 100,000 against Fort Worth's 375 on 3,859 in 2025, and its 2,088 property offenses to 918 against 2,226 on 22,886. Homicide was 2 in Cape Coral in 2023, about 0.9 per 100,000, against 78 in Fort Worth in 2025, about 7.6. The gap in years does not decide the order: Fort Worth's violent offenses dropped 17% in 2025 and 29% in four years, so its earlier years ran higher still, and Cape Coral's highest year in its series, 2022, came to about 185 per 100,000. Cape Coral's record falls on every count that exists: violent offenses went from 403 in 2022 to 277 in 2023, January to October 2024 brought 236, and the state's file, which counts somewhat differently, has 420, 357 and 243 for 2022 to 2024. For 2025 there is only the department's own word, a 28% drop in overall crime published without the counts behind it. Fort Worth's record is long and mostly improving: motor vehicle theft fell from 5,157 in 2024 to 3,616, though murders rose from 72 to 78, and FWPD then counted 36 from January through August 2026 against 54 in the same months of 2025. Both sets of FBI counts come from a feed last refreshed on 15 September 2026 and can still be revised.
Cape Coral has the far milder winter and more hot days, but not the hottest ones. January averages 18.2 C at Fort Myers Page Field, about 9 miles east-southeast of Cape Coral's center across the Caloosahatchee River because no station inside the city has current normals, against 7.7 C at Meacham, inside Fort Worth, with 0.1 nights a year at or below freezing against 32.8, and July 28.4 C against 29.5 C. Page Field's normals count 120.3 days a year at 90F or above against Fort Worth's 105.5, but none at or above 37.8 C (100F) against 24.1. The summer of 2026 showed the difference: Meacham had 55 days of 100F through 27 September, 31 of them in a row, and Page Field 134 days at 90F or above through 28 September. Cape Coral gets 1,458 mm of rain a year, 67% of it from June through September, against 898 mm, and no snow on the normals against 4.1 cm, the DFW Airport figure; no Fort Myers or Cape Coral station is on the 1961-1990 sunshine series behind Fort Worth's 2,850 hours. The costly weather differs in kind. Fort Worth's is hail: the Mayfest storm of 5 May 1995 dropped hail up to softball size on more than 10,000 people at a festival by the Trinity, hurting more than 400, and did about $2 billion of damage across Tarrant and Dallas counties, and on 28 March 2000 a tornado tracked along West 7th Street into downtown and killed two. Cape Coral's is the hurricane and its surge. Ian came ashore on Cayo Costa, the barrier island off Pine Island west of the city, on 28 September 2022 at 150 mph, a high category 4, and put 6 to 9 feet of water above the ground in Cape Coral and Pine Island; the surge sensor in Cape Coral was lost before it recorded a peak. Surge killed 41 people, 36 of them in Lee County, where at least 52,514 structures were affected and 5,369 destroyed, and Ian's $112.9 billion of damage in the US made it the costliest hurricane in Florida's history. Cold is the larger difference. Winter Storm Uri took Meacham to -2F (-18.9 C) in February 2021 while ERCOT cut power across the state grid, and Texas counted 11 of the storm's 246 deaths in Tarrant County. Page Field has recorded one night at or below freezing since 2010, 31F on 11 January 2010.
Fort Worth's half of the Dallas-Fort Worth metro has about four times the jobs of Cape Coral's whole metro, and is adding them faster. BLS counted 1,222,100 nonfarm jobs in the Fort Worth-Arlington-Grapevine division and 311,300 in the Cape Coral-Fort Myers metro, which is Lee County alone, in August 2026, 1.5% more than a year earlier in Fort Worth and 0.5% more around Cape Coral. On the same unadjusted basis unemployment in July was 4.6% in the Fort Worth division and 5.2% around Cape Coral, against 4.4% nationally. Fort Worth's economy is industrial and logistical: Lockheed Martin builds the F-35 at Air Force Plant 4, with about 49,000 direct and indirect workers in the city on the Texas Comptroller's count, Naval Air Station Joint Reserve Base Fort Worth has 4,553 direct employees, BNSF and American Airlines are headquartered in the city, and AllianceTexas in the far north counts 73,134 jobs by its developer's figures. Cape Coral runs on building and on the people who move in: mining, logging and construction held 40,900 of its metro's jobs, 13%, about twice the share around Tampa and St. Petersburg, in a city still filling lots platted in the 1950s and 1960s and rebuilding after Ian. The city's largest employers are the Lee County School District, Lee Health, the City itself and Publix; health care and leisure added the most metro jobs in the year, 1,500 each, while local government lost 2,400. Most Cape Coral residents work elsewhere: 54% of the city's workers worked outside it in 2024, though fewer than one in ten left Lee County. Neither profile carries a wage figure. City median household income was $82,503 in Fort Worth and $85,584 in Cape Coral in 2024, the latter with a margin of error of $7,375 either way, so the two are within the error, and the metros' $92,733 and $83,602. Neither state taxes income, so $100,000 pays $13,449 in federal tax in both for 2025, and sales tax is 8.25% in Fort Worth, with half a cent for transit and half for the crime control district, against 6.5% in Lee County. The property tax stacks are far apart in nominal rate and closer once the exemptions are taken. Fort Worth's six units add to 2.18908 per $100; Fort Worth ISD grants the state's $140,000 and nothing more, and Tarrant County, the City and JPS Health Network take 20% off a homestead. A house in the City of Cape Coral pays thirteen levies adding to 15.3806 mills, about 1.54 per $100: Lee County's general revenue, two school district lines, the City's operating levy and its voted parks bond, the county's All Hazards and Library districts, three South Florida Water Management District lines, the hyacinth and mosquito control districts and the West Coast Inland Navigation District, with no fire district line because the City bills fire service as an assessment instead. Florida takes $25,000 off every levy and a second $25,000 off all but the schools. So on the same $389,950 house Fort Worth's six units would charge about $6,294 against $5,362, and on $327,000 the Cape Coral stack would charge about $4,393 against Fort Worth's $5,044.
These have two of the three lowest transit shares of any city this site compares. In 2024, 0.2% of Cape Coral workers took transit, the lowest, with a margin of error that means the true figure could be zero, and 0.7% of Fort Worth's, the third-lowest after Port St. Lucie; 1.0% and 1.1% walked or cycled, 70.0% and 74.9% drove alone, and 16.3% and 10.5% worked from home. Trinity Metro carried 6,180,600 trips in 2025, 906,800 of them on TEXRail, the 27.2-mile commuter line from downtown to DFW Airport, and runs the Trinity Railway Express to Dallas with DART; its next step is a 2.1-mile TEXRail extension to the Medical District, estimated at about $167 million and due to open in 2029. Cape Coral's buses are the county's: LeeTran runs 18 fixed routes across Lee County, six of them within the city, Monday to Saturday with reduced Sunday service, and carried 1,969,906 trips in 2025, about a third of Trinity Metro's. There is no passenger rail, and the city sits on a peninsula, reaching Fort Myers across the Caloosahatchee by two bridges, the Cape Coral Bridge and the Midpoint Memorial Bridge. The airports sit at about the same distance and differ in size. DFW, American's largest hub, about 20 miles northeast of downtown Fort Worth, handled 85,660,127 passengers in 2025. Southwest Florida International, southeast of Fort Myers and about 17 miles from Cape Coral's center, handled a record 11,154,458, with Delta, Southwest, American and United its largest carriers.
Coverage is where the two states part most. Neither Texas nor Florida has expanded Medicaid, but Texas had the highest uninsured rate of any state in 2024, 16.7%, and the City of Fort Worth's was 18.9%, while Florida's was 10.9% and the City of Cape Coral's 9.4%, against 8.2% nationally. The hospitals differ in rank. JPS Health Network's John Peter Smith Hospital, Fort Worth's Level I trauma center, broke ground on 16 April 2026 on a $1.5 billion replacement that will take it from 582 beds to more than 740 in 2030, and Cook Children's Medical Center has 452 licensed beds. Cape Coral's hospital is Lee Health's Cape Coral Hospital, whose emergency department grew to 56 treatment spaces in January 2026, and Lee Health opened a walk-in care center in south Cape Coral in late 2025. Lee Health, which runs four acute care hospitals across the county, was a public special district until November 2024 and is now a private nonprofit bound by an agreement with the county to keep providing safety-net care. Neither profile verified a wait time, and the Cape Coral one carries no bed count. Both school districts are losing students. Fort Worth ISD, built for 90,000 students, had 67,315 in 2025-26, has approved closing 18 campuses by June 2029, and since 24 March 2026 has been governed by a board of managers the Education Commissioner appointed; it covers about half the city. The Lee County School District, the countywide district, counted 87,107 students in its own schools and 13,329 in charters in 2025-26, and had lost 1,946 from the year before, mainly to home education, private schools, other districts and moves, though the zone that takes in Cape Coral was at 94% of capacity. The City of Cape Coral also runs its own municipal charter schools, two elementary schools, a middle school and a high school, free and open only to children who live in the city. TCU has 12,980 students. Cape Coral's higher education is across the river: Florida Gulf Coast University, opened in 1997, with almost 15,000 students in 2017, and Florida SouthWestern State College, whose main campus is in Fort Myers.
What people underestimate is how alike these two are in the way they are growing, and how differently the bill lands. Fort Worth added 19,512 residents in 2024-25, the second-largest gain of any US city, and has grown 11.9% since 2020, the fastest of the twelve US cities of more than a million, though Tarrant County lost 6,978 more residents to the rest of the country than it gained. Cape Coral added 3,156, 1.4% and its smallest gain in five years, and has grown 21.8% since 2020, second only to Port St. Lucie among the 129 US cities of 200,000 or more; Lee County has recorded more deaths than births in every year since 2020, so all of that growth is people moving in, onto a tract two Baltimore developers bought in 1957 and their Gulf American Land Corporation sold as lots at dinner events in 24 states, digging more than 400 miles of canals. Both are building outward on charges the rates do not show. Newer Fort Worth subdivisions on the northern and western edges often sit in a public improvement district, where each lot in Walsh Ranch's first phase owes $482 to $1,559 a year, and in Keller ISD the same $327,000 house pays $5,149. The City of Cape Coral bills fire service, stormwater and solid waste as assessments on the tax bill, about $1,080 a year for 2025-26 on a house whose structure is valued at $275,000, the City's own example, which no exemption reduces and which bring a homesteaded bill to about 1.65% of the price, above Fort Worth's 1.54%. Cape Coral began, in the City's words, as a low-density community on septic tanks and shallow wells, and the City has been assessing water, sewer and irrigation lines in, area by area, since 2001: 93,343 of its 137,402 parcels have City water, and the two latest areas, North 1 West and North 1 East, cost $33,367 and $32,288 on a standard lot paid up front, or up to $3,734 and $3,385 a year on the tax bill over 30 years, a lien that passes with the lot. On the water, 20,889 lots sit on saltwater canals that reach the Gulf and 16,881 on freshwater canals that do not, and 160 bridges with set clearances decide what boat can reach a given dock. Since Ian the City applies FEMA's rule that a building whose repair or improvement costs half its depreciated market value must be brought up to the floodplain rules for new buildings, and from 1 January 2027 most Citizens Property Insurance policies with wind cover must carry flood. Fort Worth's council, on 15 September 2026 by 7 to 4, took the City's rate from 67 cents to 70.565 to help close a $94 million shortfall, and the City says the average homeowner's bill will still fall a little because the appraisal district has not reappraised houses since 2024. The Cape Coral City Council capped its fiscal 2027 operating rate at 5.1988 mills, the rolled-back rate, and its adopted rate was not found. Both bills reset on a sale: Save Our Homes resets a Florida assessment to market value the January after a sale and the Texas 10% cap lapses on one, and without a homestead the two medians would owe $7,158 and $5,998. At closing Texas has no transfer tax and no tax on the loan, and the seller customarily buys the buyer's owner's title policy, $1,901 on Fort Worth's median; Florida charges documentary stamp tax on the deed at 70 cents per $100, $2,730 on the board's Cape Coral region median and the seller's by convention, and the buyer pays 0.55% of the loan in stamp and intangible tax, about $1,716 at 20% down.
Better here
- Mortgage, property tax and insurance come to about $2,516 a month on the August 2026 median, roughly 37% of the city's median household income, against $3,056 and 43% on the board's Cape Coral region median at 7.28%.
- Insurance is budgeted at $350 a month against $475, and Zillow's index stood at $295,800 for the City of Fort Worth against $335,825 for the City of Cape Coral.
- The Fort Worth division's 1,222,100 nonfarm jobs grew 1.5% in the year to August 2026, about four times the Cape Coral metro's 311,300, and unemployment was 4.6% against 5.2%.
- Lockheed Martin's F-35 line, American Airlines, BNSF Railway and AllianceTexas's 73,134 jobs give the economy anchors in aerospace, airlines and freight.
- DFW, American's largest hub, handled 85,660,127 passengers in 2025, and TEXRail runs to it from downtown, against 11,154,458 at Southwest Florida International.
- Zillow's observed rent index was $1,615 in August against $1,949 in Cape Coral.
Worse here
- Violent crime ran 375 per 100,000 in 2025 against 122 in Cape Coral in 2023, property crime 2,226 against 918, and there were 78 homicides against 2, on FBI counts two years apart.
- January averages 7.7 C at Meacham against 18.2 C, and the normals count 24.1 days a year at or above 37.8 C (100F) against none at Page Field.
- The City of Fort Worth's uninsured rate was 18.9% in 2024 against 9.4% in the City of Cape Coral.
- Fort Worth ISD has been run by a state-appointed board of managers since 24 March 2026 and has approved closing 18 campuses by June 2029.
- The City raised its own rate from 67 cents to 70.565 in September 2026, and newer subdivisions often sit in a public improvement district.
- Uri took Meacham to -2F (-18.9 C) in February 2021 while ERCOT cut power, and Texas counted 11 deaths in Tarrant County.
Choose Fort Worth if
- you work in aerospace, defense manufacturing, airlines, freight rail or logistics
- you want to own at about $2,516 a month rather than $3,056 on about the same household income
- you fly often and want a hub airport with a train from downtown
- you will take hail, hard freezes and 100F summers over a hurricane coast
The Fort Worth guide · Neighborhoods · Fort Worth rent vs buy · Fort Worth mortgage calculator
Better here
- Violent crime ran 122 per 100,000 in 2023, the lowest of the Florida cities this site compares, against 375 in Fort Worth in 2025, and there were 2 homicides, about 0.9 per 100,000, against 78.
- The City of Cape Coral's uninsured rate was 9.4% in 2024 against 18.9% in the City of Fort Worth.
- January averages 18.2 C with 0.1 freezing nights a year, against 7.7 C and 32.8 at Meacham, and the normals count no days at 100F against 24.1.
- A homesteaded owner pays about 1.38% of the median in property tax against 1.54%, and sales tax is 6.5% against 8.25%.
- The city has grown 21.8% since 2020, second only to Port St. Lucie among US cities of 200,000 or more, and 20,889 of its lots sit on saltwater canals that reach the Gulf.
- City median household income was $85,584 in 2024 against $82,503, though the two are within the survey's margin of error.
Worse here
- The City's fire, stormwater and solid waste assessments add about $1,080 a year that no exemption reduces, bringing a homesteaded bill to about 1.65% of the price against 1.54% in Fort Worth.
- Unemployment was 5.2% around Cape Coral in July 2026 against 4.6% in the Fort Worth division, and the metro added 1,500 jobs in the year to August, a gain of 0.5%.
- Insurance is budgeted at $475 a month against $350, published averages run from $3,695 to $8,688 a year, and Hurricane Ian put 6 to 9 feet of water over the ground in Cape Coral in 2022.
- Only 0.2% of workers took transit in 2024, the lowest share of any city this site compares, and there is no passenger rail.
- A lot in the latest areas to get City water and sewer is assessed $32,288 to $33,367 up front, or up to $3,734 a year on the tax bill.
- The seller pays documentary stamp tax of $2,730 on the board's Cape Coral region median and the buyer about $1,716 in stamp and intangible tax on the loan, where Texas taxes neither the deed nor the loan.
Choose Cape Coral if
- you want low crime and a much lower uninsured rate, on the last figures the FBI has for the city
- you want a mild winter and no 100F days, and will plan around a hurricane season and check an address's surge and flood risk first
- you work in construction, health care, the schools or tourism in Lee County, or can keep a job elsewhere
- you would pay about $540 a month more to own for a canal city on about the same household income
The Cape Coral guide · Neighborhoods · Cape Coral rent vs buy · Cape Coral mortgage calculator
Fort Worth or Cape Coral, in short
Is Fort Worth or Cape Coral cheaper to live in?
Fort Worth, to own and to rent. The cities were priced a week apart, Fort Worth at Freddie Mac's 7.03% of 24 September 2026 and Cape Coral at 7.28% of 1 October, and both prices are single-family medians: the NTREIS median inside Fort Worth, $327,000 in August 2026, and the Royal Palm Coast Realtor Association's median for its Cape Coral region, $389,950, the board's region because none is published for the City of Cape Coral. At 20% down the mortgage is about $1,746 against $2,134. Property tax is $5,044 a year against about $5,362 with a homestead, and insurance $350 a month against $475, so the three lines come to about $2,516 in Fort Worth and $3,056 in Cape Coral, or $3,004 at the same 7.03%, roughly 37% and 43% of each city's median household income, $82,503 and $85,584. Zillow's index keeps the order, $295,800 for the City of Fort Worth, and Zillow's index for the City of Cape Coral stood at $335,825. Apartment List's two-bedroom medians are $1,317 in Fort Worth and $1,186 in Lee County, and Zillow's observed rent index was $1,615 against $1,949 in August. Neither state taxes income, and sales tax is 8.25% in Fort Worth against 6.5% in Lee County. Cape Coral's carry leaves out about $1,080 a year in City assessments, and neither includes a flood policy.
Is Fort Worth or Cape Coral safer?
Cape Coral, on every line, though its figures are two years older. Both are the FBI's summarized counts divided by Census estimates, but the FBI has nothing for Cape Coral's police after October 2024, so its last full year is 2023, against 2025 for Fort Worth. Violent offenses ran 122 per 100,000 in Cape Coral against 375 in Fort Worth, property offenses 918 against 2,226, and homicide was 2 in Cape Coral, about 0.9 per 100,000, against 78 in Fort Worth, about 7.6. The years do not decide it: Fort Worth's violent offenses dropped 17% in 2025 and 29% in four years, so its earlier years were higher, and Cape Coral's highest recent year, 2022, came to about 185 violent offenses per 100,000. FWPD counted 36 murders from January through August 2026 against 54 a year earlier, and Cape Coral's police reported a 28% drop in crime in 2025 without publishing the counts. Every rate here is a count divided by a Census estimate rather than a published rate, and the counts can still be revised.
Which has the better job market, Fort Worth or Cape Coral?
Fort Worth's is about four times the size, growing faster, with lower unemployment. BLS counted 1,222,100 nonfarm jobs in the Fort Worth-Arlington-Grapevine division in August 2026, 1.5% more than a year earlier, and 311,300 in the Cape Coral-Fort Myers metro, 0.5% more. On the same unadjusted basis unemployment was 4.6% in the Fort Worth division and 5.2% around Cape Coral in July. Fort Worth's work leans on Lockheed Martin's F-35 line, American Airlines, BNSF and AllianceTexas. Cape Coral's leans on construction, which holds 13% of its metro's jobs, health care, retail, the schools and tourism, and 54% of the city's workers commute out of the city, nearly all of them to elsewhere in Lee County. City median household income was about level in 2024, $82,503 in Fort Worth and $85,584 in Cape Coral.
What does buying cost beyond the price in Fort Worth and in Cape Coral?
Closing taxes, City assessments and the lot itself in Cape Coral, district levies on Fort Worth's new edges, and a reset in both. Texas has no transfer tax and no tax on the loan, and the seller customarily buys the buyer's owner's title policy, $1,901 on Fort Worth's median. Florida charges documentary stamp tax on the deed at 70 cents per $100, $2,730 on the board's Cape Coral region median and the seller's by convention, and the buyer pays 0.55% of the loan in stamp and intangible tax, about $1,716 at 20% down. In both states the seller's tax bill is no guide: Save Our Homes resets a Florida assessment to market value the January after a sale, the Texas 10% homestead cap lapses on a sale, and each exemption has to be filed; without one the medians would owe $7,158 in Fort Worth and $5,998 in Cape Coral. Newer Fort Worth subdivisions often sit in a public improvement district, at $482 to $1,559 a year a lot in Walsh Ranch's first phase. The City of Cape Coral adds about $1,080 a year in fire, stormwater and solid waste assessments, and a lot in an area still being connected to City water and sewer carries an assessment of its own, $32,288 to $33,367 up front in the two latest areas or up to $3,734 a year on the tax bill. Neither carry here includes flood insurance, and from 1 January 2027 most Citizens Property Insurance policies with wind cover must carry it.
Where the figures come from
Housing figures are the ones behind each city's calculators, dated on those pages. The rest are listed here with the date they were retrieved. See the methodology for how facts, estimates and opinion are kept apart.
- Annual Estimates of the Resident Population for Incorporated Places in Texas: April 1, 2020 to July 1, 2025 (SUB-EST2025) · US Census Bureau · retrieved Supports: City population, Five-year growth, Violent crime rate, Property crime rate, Homicides, Character
- Annual Estimates of the Resident Population for Incorporated Places of 50,000 or More (all states, SUB-EST2025) · US Census Bureau · retrieved Supports: City population, Five-year growth, Character
- Annual Resident Population Estimates and Components of Change for Metropolitan and Micropolitan Statistical Areas and Their Counties: April 1, 2020 to July 1, 2025 (CBSA-EST2025-ALLDATA) · US Census Bureau · retrieved Supports: Metro population, Five-year growth
- Crime Data Explorer summarized agency data, Fort Worth Police Department (TX2201200): violent crime, property crime, homicide, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, larceny, motor vehicle theft and arson, 2021-2025 · FBI · retrieved Supports: Violent crime rate, Property crime rate, Homicides, Crime trend, Character
- Dallas sees drop in violent crime while Fort Worth sees increase in homicides · Spectrum News · retrieved Supports: Homicides, Crime trend
- After 'puzzling' spike in homicides, Fort Worth leaders look to new police chief · Fort Worth Star-Telegram (via Yahoo News) · retrieved Supports: Violent crime rate, Homicides
- Eddie Garcia marks one year as Fort Worth police chief, shares reasons behind city's drop in violent crime · WFAA (via Yahoo News) · retrieved Supports: Homicides, Crime trend
- US Climate Normals 1991-2020, station USW00013961 Fort Worth Meacham International Airport (Access Data Service) · NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information · retrieved Supports: January mean, July mean, Annual precipitation, Climate normals, Climate hazards, Character, January 45.8F, July 85.1F and August 85.2F from the monthly series, which carries no snowfall normal for this station, and annual mean 65.9F, precipitation 35.34 in and the counts of days at 90F and 100F and nights at freezing from dataset=normals-annualseasonal-1991-2020 for the same station
- US Climate Normals 1991-2020, station USW00003927 Dallas Fort Worth International Airport (Access Data Service) · NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information · retrieved Supports: Annual snowfall, Climate normals, 1.6 in of snow, January 46.3F, July 85.7F, 37.01 in of precipitation, 20.3 days at 100F and 29.2 nights at freezing, the last three from dataset=normals-annualseasonal-1991-2020
- Global Historical Climatology Network daily summaries, Fort Worth Meacham International Airport (USW00013961), 1946-1953 and 1992-2026 · NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information · retrieved Supports: Climate hazards, Character, 55 days at or above 100F in 2026 through 27 September, 72 in 2011, 64 in 2023 and 62 in 1998, 31 in a row from 3 August to 2 September 2026, 112F on 12 July 1998 and 4 September 2000, -2F on 16 February 2021 and 31 January 1949, 4.45 in on 21 August 2022 and 5.11 in on 22 August 2022, 11F on 25 January 2026
- Global Historical Climatology Network daily summaries, Dallas Fort Worth International Airport (USW00003927), 1953-2026 · NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information · retrieved Supports: Climate hazards, -2F on 16 February 2021, 5.0 in of snow on 14 and 17 February 2021, 2.4 in of snow and sleet on 24 and 25 January 2026
- Dallas/Fort Worth: Annual and Consecutive 100 Degree Days (last updated 22 September 2026) · National Weather Service, Fort Worth/Dallas · retrieved Supports: Climate hazards
- Average Annual Sunshine in US Cities · Current Results (NCDC Comparative Climatic Data, 1961-1990) · retrieved Supports: Sunshine hours, Climate normals
- Mayfest Hailstorm, May 5, 1995 · National Weather Service, Fort Worth/Dallas · retrieved Supports: Climate hazards
- Cotality 2026 Report: Hail risk now rivals major hurricanes (2026 Severe Convective Storm Risk Report) · Cotality · retrieved Supports: Climate hazards
- March 28, 2000: 10th Anniversary, a review of the March 28, 2000 tornadoes affecting Fort Worth and Arlington (from NWS Storm Data) · National Weather Service, Fort Worth/Dallas · retrieved Supports: Climate hazards
- Damage Survey and Assessment of Fort Worth Tornado, 28 March 2000 · Texas Tech University Wind Science and Engineering Research Center · retrieved Supports: Climate hazards
- 2000 Fort Worth tornado outbreak · Wikipedia · retrieved Supports: Climate hazards
- Weather and Climate Billion-Dollar Disasters to affect the U.S. from 1980-2024 (events list) · NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information · retrieved Supports: Climate hazards
- Flood Protection · Tarrant Regional Water District · retrieved Supports: Climate hazards
- Panther Island bypass project moves forward after Trinity River dams, flood storage delays · Fort Worth Report · retrieved Supports: Climate hazards, Character
- 'Boom, here we're hit with it again.' How historic rains flooded homes and neighborhoods across Tarrant County · Fort Worth Report · retrieved Supports: Climate hazards
- February 2021 Winter Storm-Related Deaths, Texas (mortality surveillance report) · Texas Department of State Health Services · retrieved Supports: Climate hazards
- The Timeline and Events of the February 2021 Texas Electric Grid Blackouts · The University of Texas at Austin Energy Institute · retrieved Supports: Climate hazards
- ACS 2024 1-year tables B08301 and B19013 for Fort Worth city, Tarrant County and the Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington MSA · Census Reporter API (US Census Bureau ACS) · retrieved Supports: Median household income, Transit commute share, Walk and cycle commute share, Character
- ACS 2024 1-year table B27001 (health insurance coverage) for the 50 states, DC, the US, Tarrant County, Fort Worth city and the Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington MSA · Census Reporter API (US Census Bureau ACS) · retrieved Supports: Health care, Character
- Local Area Unemployment Statistics, Fort Worth-Arlington-Grapevine, TX Metropolitan Division (LAUDV482310400000003), the Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington MSA (LAUMT481910000000003), Fort Worth city (LAUCT482700000000003), Tarrant County (LAUCN484390000000003) and the US rate (LNU04000000), not seasonally adjusted · US Bureau of Labor Statistics · retrieved Supports: Unemployment rate
- Current Employment Statistics, Fort Worth-Arlington-Grapevine, TX Metropolitan Division: total nonfarm (SMU48231040000000001, SMS48231040000000001), supersectors (SMU4823104xx00000001) and aerospace product and parts manufacturing (SMU48231043133640001) · US Bureau of Labor Statistics · retrieved Supports: Main sectors, Labour market
- Naval Air Station Joint Reserve Base Fort Worth (Texas military installations economic impact, 2025) · Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts · retrieved Supports: Main sectors, Labour market, Character
- AllianceTexas Drives $142.9 Billion in Economic Impact for North Texas · Hillwood · retrieved Supports: Main sectors, Labour market, Character
- United States Air Force Plant 4 (Lockheed Martin Aeronautics, F-35 production) · Wikipedia · retrieved Supports: Main sectors
- American Airlines (headquarters, DFW hub, employees) · Wikipedia · retrieved Supports: Main sectors, Labour market, Airport passengers
- BNSF Railway (headquarters, employees) · Wikipedia · retrieved Supports: Main sectors, Labour market
- Bell Textron (headquarters) · Wikipedia · retrieved Supports: Main sectors
- City Sales and Use Tax (city rate table) · Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts · retrieved Supports: Sales tax
- Transit Sales and Use Tax (Fort Worth MTA, effective April 1, 1984) · Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts · retrieved Supports: Sales tax, Transit ridership
- Special Purpose District Sales and Use Tax (Fort Worth Crime Control District, effective October 1, 1995) · Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts · retrieved Supports: Sales tax
- Texas Tax Rates & Rankings · Tax Foundation · retrieved Supports: Top marginal income tax, Income tax on $100,000, Tax notes, Character
- 2025 Tax Brackets and Federal Income Tax Rates · Tax Foundation · retrieved Supports: Top marginal income tax, Income tax on $100,000
- 2026 Tax Brackets and Federal Income Tax Rates · Tax Foundation · retrieved Supports: Top marginal income tax, Income tax on $100,000
- Property Tax Exemptions · Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts · retrieved Supports: Tax notes
- Fort Worth passes $4.35B budget and property tax rate increase · Community Impact · retrieved Supports: Tax notes, Character
- Slightly lower property tax bills part of Fort Worth's $3.33B budget for 2027, leaders say · CBS Texas · retrieved Supports: Tax notes
- Fort Worth proposes property tax rate bump, cost cuts to close $94M shortfall for 2027 · Fort Worth Report · retrieved Supports: Tax notes, Character
- Trinity Metro (service area, members, services, fleet, citing the APTA Transit Ridership Reports, Q4 2025 and Q2 2026) · Wikipedia · retrieved Supports: Transit system, Transit ridership
- TEXRail (length, stations, opening, frequency, ridership, Medical District extension) · Wikipedia · retrieved Supports: Transit system, Transit ridership, Airport passengers
- Template:American transit ridership (APTA Transit Ridership Reports, Q4 2025 and Q2 2026) · Wikipedia · retrieved Supports: Transit ridership
- DFW Total Passengers, December 2025 (calendar year 2025 vs 2024) · Dallas Fort Worth International Airport · retrieved Supports: Airport passengers
- Fort Worth Meacham International Airport (ownership, general aviation, history) · Wikipedia · retrieved Supports: Airport passengers, Climate normals
- Status of State Medicaid Expansion Decisions · KFF · retrieved Supports: Health care
- A new era: JPS breaks ground on $1.5B hospital · Fort Worth Report · retrieved Supports: Health care
- JPS Health Network (Tarrant County Hospital District, John Peter Smith Hospital) · Wikipedia · retrieved Supports: Health care
- Cook Children's Medical Center · Wikipedia · retrieved Supports: Health care
- Texas Education Agency Appoints Board of Managers and Names New Superintendent to Lead Fort Worth ISD · Texas Education Agency · retrieved Supports: Education
- 'We failed our kids': New Fort Worth ISD board signals urgency as state takeover begins · Fort Worth Report · retrieved Supports: Education, Character
- As enrollment drops, FWISD to shift bilingual, special ed services closer to campuses · Fort Worth Report · retrieved Supports: Education, Character
- Fort Worth ISD board gives final approval to close 18 schools amid budget woes, enrollment decline · CBS Texas · retrieved Supports: Education
- Fort Worth, Texas (school districts serving the city, citing the 2020 Census school district reference map for Tarrant County; colleges and universities) · Wikipedia · retrieved Supports: Education
- Texas Christian University (fall 2025 enrollment, location, School of Medicine) · Wikipedia · retrieved Supports: Education, Health care
- 2025 Gazetteer Files: Places, Florida · US Census Bureau · retrieved Supports: point, City population, Climate normals, Airport passengers, Cape Coral city: 106.265 sq mi of land, 13.366 sq mi of water, internal point 26.643192, -81.997364
- Cape Coral, Florida (history, geography, climate, education, infrastructure, transportation) · Wikipedia · retrieved Supports: City population, Climate normals, Transit system, Education, Character
- Crime Data Explorer summarized agency data, Cape Coral Police Department (FL0360200): violent crime, property crime, homicide, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, larceny, motor vehicle theft and arson, 2021-2025 · FBI · retrieved Supports: Violent crime rate, Property crime rate, Homicides, Crime trend, Character, 2022: 403 violent (4 + 39 + 25 + 335), 1,974 property; 2023: 277 violent (2 + 18 + 13 + 244), 2,088 property (344 + 1,618 + 124 + 2); January to October 2024: 236 violent, 1,809 property; no data from November 2024; agency population 228,672 for 2023
- FIBRS offense data by agency and month, 2021 to August 2026 · Florida Department of Law Enforcement · retrieved Supports: Violent crime rate, Property crime rate, Homicides, Crime trend, Cape Coral Police Department: twelve months for each of 2022, 2023 and 2024 and no rows for 2025 or 2026; 420, 357 and 243 violent and 2,233, 2,555 and 1,980 property offenses; motor vehicle thefts 118, 175 and 135; homicides 4, 4 and 5
- Cape Coral Police Department Mid-Year Crime Report 2025: Continued Success in Reducing Crime · Cape Coral Police Department · retrieved Supports: Homicides, Crime trend, Crime down 28% in January to June 2025, 1,487 cases against 2,076; no homicides against three; thefts 612 against 850
- 2025 Annual Report · Cape Coral Police Department · retrieved Supports: Crime trend, A 28% reduction in crime in 2025 and the second-safest city in Florida with a population over 150,000, stated without counts
- US Climate Normals 1991-2020, station USW00012835 Fort Myers Page Field (Access Data Service) · NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information · retrieved Supports: January mean, July mean, Annual precipitation, Climate normals, Climate hazards, January 64.7F, July 83.2F and August 83.4F and the monthly highs, lows and rain from the monthly series, which carries no snowfall normal for this station, and annual mean 75.4F, precipitation 57.41 in, 120.3 days at 90F, 0.0 at 100F and 0.1 nights at freezing from dataset=normals-annualseasonal-1991-2020 for the same station
- US Climate Normals 1991-2020, station USW00012894 Fort Myers Southwest Florida International Airport (Access Data Service) · NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information · retrieved Supports: Climate normals, January 64.6F, July 82.7F, 53.39 in of precipitation, 119.1 days at 90F; no snowfall normal
- US Climate Normals 1991-2020, station USC00087397 Punta Gorda 4 ESE (cooperative station) (Access Data Service) · NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information · retrieved Supports: Annual snowfall, Climate normals, 0.0 in of snow (monthly and annual)
- NCEI data search, normals-monthly-1991-2020 stations within 26.85N to 26.4N and 82.25W to 81.6W, and stations with a snowfall normal within 27.2N to 25.9N and 82.5W to 81.2W · NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information · retrieved Supports: Climate normals, USW00012835 at 26.585N, 81.8614W and USW00012894 at 26.5361N, 81.755W, the only stations with full normals near the city; USC00087397 at 26.9147N, 81.9969W the nearest with a snowfall normal
- Global Historical Climatology Network daily summaries, Fort Myers Page Field (USW00012835), 2010-2026 · NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information · retrieved Supports: Climate hazards, 168 days at or above 90F in 2023 and 134 in 2026 through 28 September; 31F on 11 January 2010, the only reading at or below freezing since 2010; 34F on 1 February 2026; a 67.1 mph gust on 28 September 2022 and no observations for the following days; 84.1 mph on 10 September 2017
- Tropical Cyclone Report: Hurricane Ian (AL092022) · NOAA National Hurricane Center · retrieved Supports: Climate hazards, Character, Landfall on Cayo Costa at 1905 UTC 28 September 2022 at 130 kt and near Punta Gorda at 125 kt; 6 to 9 ft above ground in Pine Island and Cape Coral; USGS sensors in Matlacha and Cape Coral lost or destroyed; Fort Myers NOS gauge 7.26 ft above MHHW; 41 surge deaths, 36 in Lee County; 52,514 Lee County structures affected, 5,369 destroyed, 14,245 with major damage; $112.9 billion in US damage
- FY2025 Annual Comprehensive Financial Report, Statistical Section (Schedules 6, 7, 14 and 15) · City of Cape Coral (filed with the Florida Auditor General) · retrieved Supports: Climate hazards, Main sectors, Labour market, Health care, Education, Principal employers 2025: Lee County School District 2,563, Lee Health 2,015, City of Cape Coral 1,969, Publix 1,370, Wal-Mart/Sam's Club 700, Home Depot 559, Gulf Coast Village 395, Cape Coral Charter Schools 371, Sun Splash Family Water Park 300, Westin Resort 200 (9.5% of city employment together); the 2016 list; tax-exempt property $8.56 billion in fiscal 2022 and $19.73 billion in fiscal 2024, with Ian's uninhabitable-home relief
- ACS 2024 1-year tables B19013 and B25003 for Cape Coral and Fort Myers cities, Lee County, the Cape Coral-Fort Myers MSA, Florida and the US · Census Reporter API (US Census Bureau ACS) · retrieved Supports: Median household income, Character
- ACS 2024 1-year tables B19013 and B25003 for Port St. Lucie, St. Petersburg, Tampa, Orlando, Jacksonville and Miami cities · Census Reporter API (US Census Bureau ACS) · retrieved Supports: Median household income, Character
- ACS 2024 1-year table B01002 (median age) for Cape Coral and the other Florida cities this site compares, Lee County, Florida and the US · Census Reporter API (US Census Bureau ACS) · retrieved Supports: Median household income, Character
- ACS 2024 1-year tables B08007 (place of work by county), B08008 (place of work by place), B08013 (aggregate travel time), B08101 (means of transportation by age) and B08303 (travel time to work) for Cape Coral city and Lee County · Census Reporter API (US Census Bureau ACS) · retrieved Supports: Labour market, Transit commute share, Walk and cycle commute share, Character
- ACS 2024 1-year table B08301 (means of transportation) for Lee County, and ACS 2020-2024 5-year table B08301 for Cape Coral city and Lee County · Census Reporter API (US Census Bureau ACS) · retrieved Supports: Transit commute share, Walk and cycle commute share
- ACS 2024 1-year table B27001 (health insurance coverage) for Cape Coral city, Lee County, Florida and the US · Census Reporter API (US Census Bureau ACS) · retrieved Supports: Health care
- Local Area Unemployment Statistics, Cape Coral-Fort Myers, FL MSA (LAUMT121598000000003), Lee County (LAUCN120710000000003) and Cape Coral city (LAUCT121027500000003), not seasonally adjusted · US Bureau of Labor Statistics · retrieved Supports: Unemployment rate
- Current Employment Statistics, Cape Coral-Fort Myers, FL MSA: total nonfarm (SMU12159800000000001), mining, logging and construction (SMU12159801500000001), supersectors (SMU1215980xx00000001), retail trade and local government (SMU12159809093000001) · US Bureau of Labor Statistics · retrieved Supports: Main sectors, Labour market
- Discretionary Sales Surtax Information for Calendar Year 2026 (DR-15DSS) · Florida Department of Revenue · retrieved Supports: Sales tax, Lee 0.5%, January 1, 2019 to December 31, 2028
- Tax Information Publication 18A01-25: Lee County Adds a 0.5% School Capital Outlay Surtax Beginning January 1, 2019 · Florida Department of Revenue · retrieved Supports: Sales tax, approved by voters on November 6, 2018; combined rate 6.5%; expires December 31, 2028
- Florida Tax Rates & Rankings · Tax Foundation · retrieved Supports: Top marginal income tax, Income tax on $100,000, Tax notes
- 2025 millage rates for Lee County, Florida: taxing district millage book (district 057, City of Cape Coral) · Lee County Property Appraiser · retrieved Supports: Tax notes, District 057 total 15.3806 mills for 2025, of which the City 5.1471 operating and 0.1608 parks voted debt (as carried in lib/housing/cape-coral.ts)
- Cape Coral council sets fiscal 2027 property tax cap rate · Gulfshore Business · retrieved Supports: Tax notes, A 5.1988-mill maximum, the rolled-back rate against 5.1471, set 7 to 1 on 22 July 2026; taxable value $33.1 billion; hearings on 10 and 24 September
- Market insights report, August 2026: market summary and Cape Coral region · Royal Palm Coast Realtor Association · retrieved Supports: Tax notes, Cape Coral region single-family median $389,950 in August 2026 against $367,500 a year earlier (as carried in lib/housing/cape-coral.ts)
- Zillow Home Value Index and Observed Rent Index, city files, August 2026 · Zillow Research · retrieved Supports: Tax notes, Cape Coral (region 30742) all-homes value $335,825, down 3.9% on the year, and observed rent $1,949 (as carried in lib/housing/cape-coral.ts)
- Monthly Module Adjusted Data Release, complete monthly ridership with adjustments and estimates (Lee County, NTD 40028) · Federal Transit Administration, National Transit Database (via data.transportation.gov) · retrieved Supports: Transit ridership
- LeeTran (service area, hours, 2025 ridership) · Wikipedia · retrieved Supports: Transit system, Transit ridership
- Southwest Florida International Airport (owner, opening, location, carriers, annual passenger traffic 2023 to 2025) · Wikipedia · retrieved Supports: Airport passengers
- Southwest Florida International Airport reports record-breaking year-end traffic · WGCU · retrieved Supports: Airport passengers
- Lee Health and Lee County Vote to Approve Mission Agreement, Allowing for Conversion of the Health System to a Community-Focused Nonprofit · South Florida Hospital News · retrieved Supports: Health care
- Lee Health Expands Cape Coral Hospital's Emergency Department · South Florida Hospital News · retrieved Supports: Health care
- School district addresses declining enrollment · Cape Coral Breeze · retrieved Supports: Education
- Florida Gulf Coast University · Wikipedia · retrieved Supports: Education
- NTREIS monthly MLS summary report, August 2026 · North Texas Real Estate Information System and the Texas Real Estate Research Center at Texas A&M University, via the MetroTex Association of REALTORS · retrieved Supports: A median single-family sale price of $327,000 in the City of Fort Worth in August 2026 on 805 sales, against $330,000 on 884 sales in August 2025, and an average of $377,572, A median townhouse sale price of $365,000 on 20 sales, against $319,990 on 21, and a median condominium sale price of $330,000 on 16 sales, against $260,000 on 11, 3,086 active single-family listings and 3.6 months of inventory in the City of Fort Worth, A median single-family lease of $2,195 a month on 470 leases, against $2,150 on 453 a year earlier, A median single-family sale price of $343,000 in Tarrant County on 1,736 sales, and $352,250 in the Fort Worth-Arlington-Grapevine metropolitan division, City figures by property type only, with no all-types median; report produced 7 September 2026
- Housing market reports · MetroTex Association of REALTORS · retrieved Supports: Monthly reports featuring data from the Texas A&M Real Estate Research Center, based on listings of properties physically located within the specified geographic areas
- Zillow Home Value Index, all homes, middle tier, smoothed and seasonally adjusted, by city · Zillow Research · retrieved Supports: A typical home value of $295,800 for the city of Fort Worth (region 18172) in August 2026, $301,195 in August 2025, so a fall of 1.8% over the year
- Zillow Home Value Index, single-family and condominium series, by city · Zillow Research · retrieved Supports: A typical single-family value of $296,280 in the city of Fort Worth in August 2026, against $301,707 a year earlier, down 1.8%, A typical condominium value of $243,575 in the same month, against $248,614, down 2.0%, from the condominium file at https://files.zillowstatic.com/research/public_csvs/zhvi/City_zhvi_uc_condo_tier_0.33_0.67_sm_sa_month.csv
- Fort Worth Rent Report, October 2026 · Apartment List · retrieved Supports: A median rent of $1,141 for a one-bedroom and $1,317 for a two-bedroom in the city of Fort Worth, and $1,336 across all bedroom sizes, Rents down 0.2% over September and down 1.7% over the past 12 months, against -2.1% for the state
- Apartments for rent in Fort Worth, TX: average rent · Apartment List · retrieved Supports: Average listed rents of $1,279 and up for a studio, $1,352 and up for one bedroom, $1,661 and up for two, and $2,066 and up for three or more
- FY 2026 fair market rents, Fort Worth-Arlington, TX HUD Metro FMR Area · United States Department of Housing and Urban Development · retrieved Supports: FY 2026 fair market rents of $1,473 for one bedroom, $1,723 for two and $2,273 for three, as gross rents including utilities, The FMR area as Johnson, Parker and Tarrant counties
- Zillow Observed Rent Index, all homes plus multifamily, smoothed, by city · Zillow Research · retrieved Supports: An observed rent index of $1,615 for the city of Fort Worth in August 2026, against $1,606 a year earlier, up 0.54%
- Rates and exemptions: 2025 tax rates per $100 valuation, and detail · Tarrant County Tax Assessor-Collector · retrieved Supports: 2025 rates per $100: Tarrant County 0.186200, City of Fort Worth 0.670000, Fort Worth ISD 1.029100, Keller ISD 1.085200, Tarrant County College 0.112280, JPS Health Network 0.165000, Tarrant Regional Water District 0.026500, Maintenance and debt splits: Tarrant County 0.173000 and 0.013200, City of Fort Worth 0.522500 and 0.147500, Fort Worth ISD 0.786900 and 0.242200, Keller ISD 0.755200 and 0.330000, Tarrant County College 0.096280 and 0.016000, JPS 0.155100 and 0.009900, water district 0.026500 and none, from https://entityportal.tarrantcountytx.gov/ratesExemptions.asp, Homestead exemptions of 20% (minimum $5,000) for Tarrant County, the City of Fort Worth and JPS Health Network, 1% (minimum $5,000) for Tarrant County College, none for the Tarrant Regional Water District, and $140,000 for Fort Worth ISD and Keller ISD, Eagle Mountain-Saginaw ISD at 1.245700, Crowley ISD at 1.255200 with a 10% local option, Emergency Service District 1 at 0.074348, Far North Fort Worth MUD at 1.000000 and Live Oak Creek MUD at 0.942000, Fort Worth public improvement district assessments per $100: PID 1 Downtown 0.125, PID 6 Park Glen 0.155 residential, PID 7 Heritage 0.145 residential, PID 11 Stockyards 0.12, PID 12 Chapel Hill 0.14, PID 14 Trinity Bluff 0.10, PID 15 Sun Valley 0.24, PID 19 Historic Camp Bowie 0.10, PID 20 East Lancaster Avenue 0.266, PID 21 Las Vegas Trail 0.10
- 2025 tax rates per $100 valuation for Tarrant County, last updated 8 October 2025 · Tarrant Appraisal District · retrieved Supports: The same 2025 rates and homestead exemptions for the county, the City, the hospital district, the college, the water district and every school district in the county, Northwest ISD at 1.0841 per $100 for 2025, No 2026 table yet: https://www.tad.org/content/rates/2026TaxRates.pdf returned not found, from https://www.tad.org/resources/rates
- Residential property data, 2026 appraisal roll · Tarrant Appraisal District · retrieved Supports: 255,731 single-family accounts inside the City of Fort Worth in Tarrant County, 121,356 of them in Fort Worth ISD, 33,569 in Eagle Mountain-Saginaw ISD and 32,861 in Keller ISD, 120,071 of the 121,356 City of Fort Worth and Fort Worth ISD single-family accounts carrying the Tarrant Regional Water District
- Tarrant water district lowers property tax rate, but cities will pay more for water use · Fort Worth Report · retrieved Supports: The water district's taxing district, established in 1949, is primarily in Fort Worth and funds operation and maintenance of the 27-mile Fort Worth Floodway
- Valuing property: limitation on residence homestead value increases · Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts · retrieved Supports: A residence homestead's appraised value may not rise more than 10% a year once the owner has qualified in the preceding and current year
- 2020 block assignment files, Texas: unified school districts and places · United States Census Bureau · retrieved Supports: Read with the 2020 redistricting file's block populations, at https://www2.census.gov/programs-surveys/decennial/2020/data/01-Redistricting_File--PL_94-171/Texas/tx2020.pl.zip, and the district names in https://www2.census.gov/geo/docs/maps-data/data/gazetteer/2025_Gazetteer/2025_Gaz_unsd_national.zip, Of the City of Fort Worth's 918,915 residents in 2020: 473,224 in Fort Worth ISD, 119,281 in Keller ISD, 83,129 in Eagle Mountain-Saginaw ISD, 81,929 in Crowley ISD, 67,070 in Northwest ISD, 27,617 in Hurst-Euless-Bedford ISD, 17,470 in White Settlement ISD and 16,049 in Everman ISD, 473,224 of Fort Worth ISD's 519,747 residents inside the city
- 2025 Gazetteer files: places, Texas · United States Census Bureau · retrieved Supports: A land area of 352.011 square miles and a water area of 8.183 square miles for Fort Worth city
- Extraterritorial Jurisdiction (ETJ) · City of Fort Worth Development Services · retrieved Supports: The ETJ as the unincorporated land within five miles of the city limits, where the City can regulate some activities, Water control and improvement districts, fresh water supply districts and municipal utility districts in the ETJ, under the City's MUD policy of 2005
- Extraterritorial Jurisdiction (ETJ) layer, City of Fort Worth open data boundaries · City of Fort Worth · retrieved Supports: The ETJ's polygons summing to 164,965 acres, about 258 square miles, with the latest edit dated 1 September 2026
- Public Improvement Districts (PIDs) · City of Fort Worth · retrieved Supports: Fifteen districts listed: 1 Downtown, 6 Park Glen, 7 Heritage, 11 Stockyards, 12 Chapel Hill, 14 Trinity Bluff, 15 Sun Valley, 16 Walsh Ranch/Quail Valley, 17 Rock Creek Ranch, 18 Tourism, 19 Historic Camp Bowie, 20 East Lancaster Avenue, 21 Las Vegas Trail, 22 Veale Ranch and 23 Panther Island, PIDs 16 and 17, formed in 2016, supporting streets, drainage, water, sewer and other infrastructure; PID 22 Veale Ranch established in 2023 for a 60-year term; PID 23 established in 2026
- Fort Worth Public Improvement District No. 16 (Walsh Ranch/Quail Valley): annual service plan update, fiscal year 2027, 25 August 2026 · City of Fort Worth and MuniCap · retrieved Supports: Fiscal 2027 annual installments per lot in Improvement Area 1 of $482.14 for a 35-foot lot, $597.93 for 50 feet, $737.46 for 60 feet, $940.24 for 70 feet and $1,558.83 for a custom lot, Assessments bearing interest at the rate on the district's bonds, 4.63%, repaid over twenty annual installments, eighteen of them outstanding
- Central City · Tarrant Regional Water District · retrieved Supports: The rerouting of a section of the Trinity River due north of downtown, with flood water storage at Gateway Park, The Army Corps of Engineers building the bypass channel, three isolation gates, a dam, a pump station and ten flood water storage areas; the water district, the City and the state building the rest
- Army Corps awards contract for first half of major $1.2B Fort Worth flood control, development project · Tarrant Regional Water District, republishing WFAA of 24 September 2026 · retrieved Supports: A $169,431,703 contract with Walsh Construction Company for the north bypass channel, An 800-acre island, and 2,400 acres of land protected from flooding
- $403M coming to Panther Island · Tarrant Regional Water District, republishing the Fort Worth Star-Telegram of 19 January 2022 · retrieved Supports: A 1.5-mile bypass channel connecting the Clear and West Forks of the Trinity River north of downtown Fort Worth
- Gas Wells and Gas Compressor/Well Pad Sites layers, planning and development map service · City of Fort Worth · retrieved Supports: 2,351 gas wells, 1,955 of them producing, 287 abandoned, 84 water disposal, 13 permitted and 12 applying, in a layer last edited in December 2025, 529 gas compressor and well pad sites, from layer 9
- Gas well drilling · City of Fort Worth Development Services · retrieved Supports: The Barnett Shale as a natural gas reserve under a 15-county area, about 1.5 miles below the surface, No well drilled closer than 600 feet to a residence, religious institution, public building, hospital, school or public park without a waiver from the protected use owners or City Council approval
- Garbage service · City of Fort Worth Environmental Services · retrieved Supports: Monthly rates of $13.75, $19.50 and $25.75 for the 32-, 64- and 96-gallon garbage cart, shown as effective 1 January 2024, Solid waste fees billed on the Fort Worth water bill as a sanitation fee, with recycling and yard waste collected at no additional charge
- Stormwater utility fee · City of Fort Worth · retrieved Supports: Residential rates from 1 January 2026 of $3.65 a month up to 1,300 square feet of hard surface, $7.29 to 2,475, $10.94 to 3,394 and $14.58 above it, on the monthly water bill
- Primary Mortgage Market Survey, 24 September 2026 · Freddie Mac · retrieved Supports: A 30-year fixed-rate mortgage averaging 7.03%, up from 6.95% the week before and 6.30% a year earlier
- Texas homeowners insurance market overview · Texas Department of Insurance · retrieved Supports: A statewide average homeowners premium of $3,489 a year for 2025, Hail as the largest cause of paid homeowners losses, $4.93 billion in 2024 against $2.21 billion for wind
- How much is homeowners insurance in Fort Worth, TX? · Insure.com · retrieved Supports: An average Fort Worth premium of $4,290 a year for $300,000 of dwelling cover, $100,000 of liability and a $1,000 deductible, updated 27 May 2026, An average of $3,342 a year for $200,000 of dwelling cover
- Texas homeowners insurance · NerdWallet · retrieved Supports: An average Fort Worth premium of $5,600 a year for $500,000 of dwelling cover, $300,000 of liability and a $1,000 deductible, updated 20 February 2026
- Renters insurance in Texas · NerdWallet · retrieved Supports: An average Fort Worth renters premium of $167 a year, $14 a month, for $30,000 of personal property, updated 23 September 2026
- Monthly homeowners' association and condominium fee, tables B25142 and B25143, 2024 American Community Survey 1-year estimates, Fort Worth city · United States Census Bureau, via the Census Reporter API · retrieved Supports: A median monthly association fee of $55 among Fort Worth owner-occupied units that pay one, 85,299 of 210,450 owner-occupied units, or 40.5%, paying such a fee, and 7,153 paying $500 or more a month
- Homebuyer Assistance Program (HAP) · City of Fort Worth Neighborhood Services · retrieved Supports: Up to $25,000 of interest-free assistance toward the down payment and closing costs, as a forgivable loan: forgiven after ten years in the home, or after five on $14,999 or less, Income limits updated July 2026 of $61,800 for one person to $88,250 for four, First-time buyers, or anyone who has not owned a home in three years; an eight-hour homebuyer class; a contribution of $1,000 or 2% of the price, whichever is less; a home inside the city limits; a sales price no more than 95% of the area median, under the HOME rules
- Cape Clips: highlights from the August 26, 2026, City Council meeting · City of Cape Coral · retrieved Supports: Fire service assessment for 2026-27: the flat tier from $349.32 to $341.63 a parcel and the structure tier from $3.47 to $3.16 per equivalent benefit unit, the average single-family home from $540.17 to $515.43, Stormwater from $156 to $163; solid waste for individual residential households unchanged at $384.25
- Tax billed assessments (non-ad valorem taxes) · City of Cape Coral, Customer Billing Services · retrieved Supports: Stormwater at $156.00 per equivalent residential unit for fiscal 2026 and $149.00 for 2025, A fire service assessment of $349.32 per parcel (Tier 1) and $3.47 per $5,000 of structure value (Tier 2) for fiscal 2026, against $278.84 and $3.07 for 2025, Solid waste at $384.25 per dwelling unit for fiscal 2026 and $345.76 for 2025; lot mowing by district on vacant lots, Utilities Extension Project assessments on a standard 10,000-square-foot parcel: North 1 West $33,367 prepaid or $35,930 financed at 6.50%, first on the taxes in 2024; North 1 East $32,288 prepaid or $33,142 financed at 6.25%, first on the taxes in 2026; 30-year default terms, Maximum annual installments for North 1 West of $812, $1,490 and $660 for water, sewer and irrigation line extension and $131, $383 and $258 for capital facility expansion charges; for North 1 East $855, $997, $803, $126, $360 and $244, Utilities extended to nearly all of south Cape Coral and work under way north of Pine Island Road
- Water, wastewater and irrigation rate schedules, effective 1 October 2026 · City of Cape Coral, Financial Services · retrieved Supports: A water capacity charge of $25.36 a month on a 5/8-inch meter and a residential commodity charge of $5.44 per thousand gallons to 5,000, A wastewater capacity charge of $32.83 a month and $12.85 per thousand gallons, Single-family irrigation at a flat $13.40 a month
- City of Cape Coral GIS: Ownership, Canals and Bridges layers · City of Cape Coral, ArcGIS Server · retrieved Supports: 137,402 parcels, 93,343 with City water available and 91,771 with City sewer, the rest in the Utilities Extension Project's North areas, 20,889 lots marked on salt water, 16,881 on fresh water and 406 on the river, Saltwater canals in five navigation systems on the Canals layer (PublicWorks MapServer 11), and 160 bridges with vertical clearances on the Bridges layer (PublicWorks MapServer 0)
- Notice to industry: substantial improvement and substantial damage, and the FEMA 50% rule notice · City of Cape Coral, Development Services · retrieved Supports: Substantial improvement as any repair, reconstruction, rehabilitation, alteration, addition or other improvement whose cost equals or exceeds 50% of the market value of the building before the work, and any repair of a substantially damaged building, City staff comparing the cost of the work with the depreciated market value of the building, and a building at or over 50 percent brought into compliance with the floodplain rules for new buildings, its lowest floor elevated, From 10 July 2025, under HB 683 and SB 180 (2025), determinations made per permit rather than on aggregate improvements
- Cape Coral helps Hurricane Ian recovery, removing five-year look-back for FEMA's 50% rule · Woodward, Pires & Lombardo, P.A. · retrieved Supports: Ordinance 96-22, approved 30 November 2022, removing the five-year cumulative count of repairs and additions from the City's substantial damage determination
- Additional homestead exemption adjustment, revised January 2025 · Florida Department of Revenue · retrieved Supports: A CPI change of 2.9% and a maximum additional exemption of $25,722 for 2025, against the $25,000 base year of 2024
- Exemption information pamphlet · Lee County Property Appraiser · retrieved Supports: A homestead exemption of up to $50,000: the first $25,000 against all taxes and an additional $25,000 on assessed value over $50,000 for all levies other than school taxes, Applications on Form DR-501 by 1 March, and portability to a new homestead established within three years of 1 January of the year the old one was abandoned
- Rent estimates summary, September 2026 · Apartment List · retrieved Supports: For Lee County, September 2026: $1,258 overall, $1,032 for one bedroom and $1,186 for two, with rents down 0.61% on the month and 4.8% on the year, No row for the City of Cape Coral among the file's cities
- Apartments for rent in Cape Coral, FL: average rent · Apartment List · retrieved Supports: Average listed rents of $1,336 and up for a studio, $1,607 and up for one bedroom, $1,832 and up for two, and $2,419 and up for three or more
- Median household income, median home value, median gross rent and tenure, tables B19013, B25077, B25064 and B25003, 2024 American Community Survey 1-year estimates · United States Census Bureau, via the Census Reporter API · retrieved Supports: A median household income of $85,584 in Cape Coral city, against $83,602 in Lee County and $77,735 for Florida, A median owner-occupied home value of $401,800 in Cape Coral city, 69,402 of Cape Coral's 87,681 occupied homes owner-occupied, and a median gross rent of $1,998 against $1,812 for Florida
- Median gross rent by bedrooms, table B25031, 2024 American Community Survey 1-year estimates, Cape Coral city · United States Census Bureau, via the Census Reporter API · retrieved Supports: A median gross rent of $1,719 for one bedroom, $1,702 for two, $2,272 for three and $2,637 for four
- Monthly homeowners' association and condominium fee, tables B25142 and B25143, 2024 American Community Survey 1-year estimates, Cape Coral city · United States Census Bureau, via the Census Reporter API · retrieved Supports: 8,351 of 69,402 owner-occupied units, or 12%, paying a homeowners' association or condominium fee, A median monthly fee of $386 among them, and 1,993 paying $500 or more a month
- Documentary stamp tax · Florida Department of Revenue · retrieved Supports: 70 cents on each $100 of consideration on a deed in every county except Miami-Dade, 35 cents per $100 on a promissory note, capped at $2,450
- Rule 69O-186.003, Florida Administrative Code: title insurance rates · Florida Department of State, Florida Administrative Code · retrieved Supports: An owner's title insurance premium of $5.75 per $1,000 of liability to $100,000 and $5.00 per $1,000 from $100,000 to $1 million
- Florida homeowners insurance · NerdWallet · retrieved Supports: An average Cape Coral premium of $3,695 a year, $308 a month, against $3,725 in Fort Myers, on a sample policy with $500,000 of dwelling cover, updated 20 February 2026
- Best home insurance in Florida (2026) · Insurify · retrieved Supports: An estimated average annual premium of $8,688 in Cape Coral for $300,000 of dwelling cover, against $10,296 in Naples and $13,716 in Port Saint Lucie, current as of 30 September 2026
- Renters insurance in Florida · NerdWallet · retrieved Supports: An average Cape Coral renters premium of $140 a year, $12 a month
- Section 627.701, Florida Statutes: liability of insureds; hurricane deductibles · The Florida Legislature · retrieved Supports: An insurer offering hurricane deductibles of $500, 2%, 5% and 10% of the policy dwelling limits
- Flood: Citizens' flood insurance requirements · Citizens Property Insurance Corporation · retrieved Supports: Under section 627.715, Florida Statutes, most new and renewing Citizens personal residential policies with wind coverage required to carry flood insurance by 1 January 2027, Homes in a FEMA special flood hazard area required already
- FloodSmart · Federal Emergency Management Agency, National Flood Insurance Program · retrieved Supports: Most homeowners insurance not covering flood damage
- SB 4-D (2022): Building Safety, chapter 2022-269, Laws of Florida · The Florida Senate · retrieved Supports: Milestone inspections required of condominium and cooperative associations, and a prohibition on waiving or reducing reserves for certain items after a specified date
- Florida Hometown Heroes Housing Program · Florida Housing Finance Corporation · retrieved Supports: Down payment and closing cost assistance for first-time, income-qualified buyers in eligible occupations employed full time by a Florida-based employer, Up to 5% of the first mortgage, a maximum of $35,000 and a minimum of $10,000, as a 0%, non-amortizing, 30-year deferred second mortgage that is not forgivable