Polk County was named after the 11th President of the United States, James Knox Polk.. Like many other areas in the central and north-east area of the Florida Peninsula that Bahia Real Estate services, Polk County originally found economic success in cattle farming, citrus orchards and phosphorus mining.
Polk Country is still an important center in Florida for phosphorus mining, and 25% of the world’s phosphorus (used for agricultural fertilizer) is sourced from mines in Polk County. Farming also continues to be very important in Polk County’s economy, with beef and dairy cattle, and citrus being as important as they always have been. Like other counties Bahia Real Estate services, tourism is booming in Polk County, with sporting events being particularly big in Polk County.
Polk County has the honor of being the first county in Florida to open a theme park – Cypress Gardens in Winter Haven, which was opened in the mid 1930s.
Polk County is also unique in that it is the “Lightning Capital of the World” with more lightning strikes recorded in a year than any other place (except, in some years), the country of Rwanda. You could say that Polk County is attractive and electric.
And it is an attractive place to live and work. Polk County enjoys Florida’s balmy subtropical climate, but its inland location means that it is shielded from the severe effects of hurricanes landing from the Caribbean and Atlantic. And people are flocking in. The county capital, Bartow, has already quadrupled in size since 2000 and is predicted to triple again. Most of the new area annexed by Bartow is undeveloped and zoned for residential use.
This means that real estate in Polk County in general and Bartow in particular is a thriving and humming industry. If you’re looking for a new property to develop as an investment, or a new site to develop and build your new home, then here at Bahia Real Estate, we have the contacts and the listings to help you make your dreams a reality.