A Florida developer is making hay while the Sunshine State wilts in cloudy weather.

Todd Gates has headed from Naples, Fla., to Panama, where real estate market conditions are presently much sunnier.

This sliver of a nation south of Costa Rica links Central America to South America. It has coastlines on the Atlantic and Pacific and lush mountains in between. Here, Gates has found his idyll: a revenue base not tied to boom-and-bust Florida.

Panama is where he's now developing resorts, commercial buildings and residential areas worth $25 million to $500 million each.

"I spent two years visiting every Caribbean island and Central American country," Gates said. "Panama had exactly what I was looking for."

Gates liked that the service-based economy, growing nearly 9% a year, wasn't tourism-centric but diversified with banking, commerce and shipping. Panama is home to the world's second biggest free-trade zone. The $5.2 billion expansion of the Panama Canal should help keep the economy pumping.