The Retreat at Twin Lakes

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 2004, Engle Homes began construction on the 263 two-story townhouse development which is located 18 miles (30 km) northeast of downtown Orlando.

[1] 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.

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 state of Florida.