Sarasota Real Estate Market Update - Inventories Are Up!

I rotated the chart to make it easier to read. These are Sarasota county inventory, sales and pending sales figures for the last 3 years. As you can see the inventory of homes have been dropping nicely for the last few years.  The dark green lines at the bottom represent closed sales. Notice the increase in home sales in 2009. The red line on the chart represents pending sales.

The number of homes for sale actually increased last month. However, it was only a modest .3% from September 2009. The sales increased 2% and pending sales increased nearly 18%. Compared to a year ago inventories are down 29%. I think the increase in inventory from September to October is probably due to those people who want to have their home listed during the busy winter season. If you look at October and November in 2006 and 2007 you will notice that the inventory of Sarasota houses increased as well.

Based on closed sales the Sarasota real estate market has 10.6 months of inventory. Based on pending sales it has 7.2% months of inventory. I think we are due for a busy season. I am noticing an increase in local traffic. Also, I am receiving plenty of calls from Canada. Their dollar is really strong and almost at parity with the U.S. dollar. You should see plenty of Canadians looking for second homes here.