Florida Real Estate

This is a follow up to last week's post - 50% off?

Clients often ask us what kind of discount they can expect to receive in an all-cash transaction. Sellers love receiving cash offers and typically will discount their home a little more because of no mortgage headaches. However, the discount is not as great as most people think. Below are sales statistics in Sarasota county for sold properties in the last six months.

Sarasota County Sales in the Last Six Months

• 4,171 - Number of properties sold
• 2,628 - Cash transactions
• 63% of all transactions were cash
• $5,250,000 - Highest sales price
• $2,500 - Lowest sales price (could be a reporting error)
• $206,474 - Average sales price
• $119,900 - Median sales price
• 93% - sales…

More good news for the Sarasota Florida real estate market. Take a look at this article:

Forbes.com - Where Americans Are Hunting For Homes

There is more good news for real estate in the sunshine state. Realtor.com released their top 10 turnaround real estate markets based on 3rd quarter 2011 data. It was dominated by Florida with 6 of the top 10. The six markets included - Miami, Orlando, Ft. Myers/Cape Coral, Ft. Lauderdale, Sarasota/Bradenton & Lakeland/Winter Haven. Here is Realtor.com's opinion of the Sarasota FL real estate market:

Here is an interesting video about Florida real estate through the eyes of Jim Cramer from www.TheStreet.com.

He made a comparison between stocks and the Florida real estate market. He mentions how real estate in the sunshine state "fell of a cliff" much sooner than the rest of the country and that the rebounding of this market will lead the rebound in the rest of the United States. He also mentioned that the CEO of Toll Brothers Home builder classified Florida as the only A+ state in the country.

Sarasota Real Estate Inventories

You will notice that Jim Cramer mentions supply demand several times. This ultimately dictates price. Sarasota real estate inventories are very low with strong demand. I pulled the chart below from my October 3rd…

A funny thing can happen when supplies shrink and demand is good - prices will eventually rise. Today in the Sarasota Herald Tribune there is an article titled - Region makes national list of recession-resistant cities for real estate. The article talks about a recent Forbes article using Zillow data to create a list of "America's Recession-Resistant Cities For Real Estate." Using data from Zillow.com, the Forbes article states that Sarasota real estate prices have begun to appreciate. Several cities in Florida made the list.

Excerpts from Sarasota Herald Tribune article:

It can be entertaining and amusing to hear beliefs (in many cases myths) about the Sarasota FL real estate market. I hear many of them. The myths are often times created by the national media reporting about real estate market conditions and especially Florida real estate. I am not going to tell you that everything is hunky dorey here but I will tell you that most buyers are misinformed and their expectations are unrealistic. A myth usually starts with something like:

1. Expect 25%-50% off

It depends on how you look at this. In many cases you may get 25-50% off of the 2004-2005 price however you probably will not get a…

The Sarasota Florida real estate market continues to eat through its inventory. Notice the drop above from May 2011 of 5,604 listings for sale to 5,372 in June 2011. This gives Sarasota county 6.5 months of inventory based on closed sales and 6.3 months of inventory based on pending sales. The average sold price in June 2011 was $238,000 with the average sales price/list price ratio of 91%.

Average Price of Sarasota Homes & Condos

The above chart shows the average asking price as well as the average price of sold properties. Average prices are trending higher when comparing June 2010's average price of $217,000 to June 2011 price of $238,000.

Sarasota Real Estate Statistics

Comments Wanted

I would love to hear where you think the Sarasota real estate market is on this market cycle. Please make a comment. Are better times ahead? Are things going to get worse before they get better? Where do you think we are on this chart?

Since there are those debbie downers out there who just love to spread negative news and energy I am only going to post comments with valid email addresses. I promise not to post only the positive comments.

March 2011 Pending Sales Exceed Sales of March 2003, 2004 & 2005

The above chart shows the pending sales and closed transaction from 2003 to 2011. Pending sales are an indicator of future closed transactions. You can read more about this at my other blog post - Sarasota 2011 Pending…

Remember the boom years of 2003-2005? Remember when the market was going crazy and everyone became a buyer of investment properties, regardless of price? Well, here is some interesting news. The March 2011 pending sales, which is a future indicator of closed sales, has outpaced pending sales of March 2003, 2004 and 2005.

The chart above shows the number of properties for sale, sold and pending. The red line indicates pending sales. See how it spiked in March 2011? That is good news for the Sarasota real estate market. The market is liquid at the right asking price.

Good news for the Sarasota real estate market. Inventories continue to decline while pending sales and closed sales rose. Take a look at the chart below from Trendgraphix.com which pulls sales data from our Mid Florida MLS.

The data above is for Sarasota county. It is great to see the number of properties for sale decrease from 6,670 to 6,286. Also notice how pending sales shot up from 991 in January 2011 to 1,392 properties in March 2011. This is a indicator of future closed transactions.

	Current vs. Previous Month			Current vs. Same Month 1 Yr Ago
	Mar. 11	Feb. 11	% Change	Mar. 11	Mar. 10	% Change
For Sale	6,286	6,670	-5.8%	6,286	7,095	-11.4%
Sold	940	765	22.9%	940	965	-2.6%