Arika grew up on a farm west of the Twin Cities and attended The Blake School in Minneapolis. It was there that she gained an appreciation for both small town and city life. She headed to the East Coast and graduated from Union College in New York. One of four children, Arika quickly learned the skills of negotiation, cooperation, and mediation. While growing up, she vacationed with her family, on the beaches of Southwest Florida. Every time she crossed the causeway to the islands, she would feel the stress of every day life disappear and thought she had arrived! After years of escaping Minnesota winters, she has made Florida her home. Not only does she want you to feel you have arrived, she wants to welcome you and help make Southwest Florida your home to build years of happy memories! "Arika helped us find the absolute "perfect" rental/retirement property on Captiva Island, using our inputs, combining her experience, her assessments, her patience and responsive service for roughly 2 years.....If you want real market support that works and is effective – where you know you will get results - use Arika. When making a big decision like investing in SW FL housing, you have to be sure that the outcomes fit your family needs and I can’t thank Arika enough for doing just that and getting us where we are today.” Kris & Lori Robbins "Thanks to Arika, we are happily settled in our dream home. She made the journey to this point smooth and enjoyable. She was one of the first people we met when we moved to Fort Myers several years ago and, as we began looking at houses, she taught us so much about the housing market, home buying, financing, and the Fort Myers area in general. Unfortunately for Arika, we were picky about what we wanted and looked at numerous houses; however, she kindly showed us any property that interested us. She never was pushy and truly wanted us to decide what was right. We are convinced that her patience and expertise led us to the perfect house. Her professionalism and knowledge made the closing process easy. Arika easily dealt with technical questions. We are happy to have her now as our friend and we will trust her with any real estate needs in the future. She is the absolute BEST!!" Dr. Linville