Lee County parcel numbers and building area: what to know before you use the data
Lee County's records are detailed, which is exactly why a few things are worth knowing before you copy a number into a comp.
The STRAP number
Lee County identifies a parcel with a STRAP number. Written the way the county shows it, it looks like 13-44-24-P4-3800B.0000. Run together, the same parcel is seventeen characters: 134424P43800B0000. The first six digits are the section, township and range (13-44-24), and the rest identify the subdivision, block and lot.
The practical point: the same parcel appears with separators on one site and without them on another, and a search that fails in one form often works in the other. Keep it in one form in your own records.
Building area: enclosed or total
This is the one that changes a price per square foot. Lee County publishes two building areas for a property: the enclosed area, and a total that also includes open porches, canopies and covered walkways. A store that measures 4,212 square feet enclosed can show 4,860 square feet in the total.
The enclosed figure is generally the one that matches a gross building area. The extra is real square footage, but it is not building area, and mixing the two across comps skews every price per square foot in the grid. Decide which you are using, and use it for every comp.
Confirming a Lee County sale
The route is the same as for any Florida county:
- Find the parcel on the Lee County Property Appraiser's site and read the sales list: date, price, and the recorded instrument.
- Open the recorded deed at the Lee County Clerk of Courts. Read the date it was signed, the grantor and grantee, the full legal description, the consideration and the documentary stamps.
- Search the Clerk's records for a mortgage by the buyer around the deed date to learn the financing.
- Check whether the deed conveys more than one parcel for one price.
For the general method and the checks worth making on every comp, see Florida sale data for appraisers.
Using Lee County in ValuBids
ValuBids reads Lee County's own parcel records, including the enclosed building area, so a parcel number fills in the address, land area, year built and last sale without the covered porches inflating the building size. It shows what the county left out of the building area as a separate note, so you can see the difference and decide for yourself.