The Retreat at Twin Lakes
Coordinates: 28°47′33″N 81°19′50.5″W / 28.79250°N 81.330694°W
The Retreat at Twin Lakes is a gated community in the US city of Sanford, Florida that gained notoriety following the February 2012 shooting of Trayvon Martin by George Zimmerman. The community initially consisted of 1,400-square-foot (130 m²) townhouses which sold on average for $250,000, but had values below $100,000 by February 2012 due in large part to the financial crisis of 2007–2008. In 2013, properties ranged from "$115,990s–$126,990s."
In 2004, Engle Homes began construction on the 263 two-story townhouse development which is located 18 miles (30 km) northeast of Downtown Orlando. The community, near Interstate 4 in a suburban section of Sanford, was marketed as "an oasis where nobody could park a car on the street or paint the house an odd color." The remaining lots were acquired by Lennar Homes following Engle Homes' 2008 bankruptcy filing, and the neighborhood was finally built out in 2011.
George Zimmerman moved to the community in 2009. At that time, the United States was experiencing the Great Recession. This caused a "demographic transformation" of the gated community, where 1,400-square-foot (130 m²) townhouses had once sold on average for $250,000. However, by February 2012, that value "...had fallen below $100,000." With the change came a "spate of burglaries" which were largely due to the "...large-scale foreclosures in the wake of the housing crash led investors to rent, rather than sell, the spaces, which brought a new, transient type of resident." These events were the background which led to the fatal shooting and the controversy of the "Stand your ground" laws which were in effect in the entire U.S. state of Florida. After the shootings, the community had been in the "national spotlight."
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