The market is busy, busy, busy
Posted by Marc Rasmussen on Tuesday, March 8th, 2011 at 7:40am.The Sarasota Florida real estate market is very active. This is our busy selling season as many of the visiting snowbirds consider buying a slice of paradise. Our January pending sales shot through the roof. I imagine the same will be true when the February numbers are published. I am working closely with a handful of buyers and have seen several instances of multiple offers within the last 30 days. Buyers continue to flock to good properties that are priced well. According to our January sales Sarasota county had roughly a 10 month supply of properties for sale which is a far cry from the 34 months of supply we had back in early 2007. Make no mistake about it - the market is busy and improving (that does not mean prices are going up yet). I expect our pending and closed sales to continue to rise.
The Winter (selling) Season
Here are the sales, pending sales and inventory levels since January of 2008. Notice how every winter season the pending sales (red line) and closed sales (dark green bars) increased. Pending sales are an indicator of future closed sales. We should see alot of closing in March - June.
Pending Sales
Let's break down the pending sales by area. I am pulling this data from our Mid-Florida MLS system. Not all of these properties will close but most of them will.
- 4,058 pending transactions in Sarasota and Manatee counties. You read that right - 4,059 properties.
- 2,356 in Sarasota county
- 1,702 in Manatee county
- 88 in zip code 34228 (Longboat Key)
- 102 in zip code 34242 (Siesta Key)
- 205 in zip code 34202 (Lakewood Ranch area)
- 110 in zip code 34236 (Lido Key, Bird Key, downtown Sarasota)
Pending Sales by Price
The prices below are for both Sarasota and Manatee counties:
| 0 - $100,000 | 1,453 | 35.8% | ||
| $101,000 - $200,000 | 1,311 | 32.3% | ||
| $200,001 - $500,000 | 1,018 | 25% | ||
| $500,001 - $750,000 | 135 | 3.3% | ||
|
$750,001 - $1 million |
63 | 1.5% | ||
|
Over $1 million |
78 | 1.9% |
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Share2 Responses to "The market is busy, busy, busy"
Hi Stan,
Thank you for the comment. I welcome them. I would like to respond to some of your comments.
YOU SAID: "Two glaringly obvious facts are that the number of houses for sale in Jan 08 just magically disappeared seeing that the ratio of available homes vs sold are tremendously different. I guess sellers just took their houses off the market? I think not. Maybe the banks took them off, to keep values up?"
I don't create these graphs. Trendgraphix is a third party that generates useful statistics, data and graphs based on information from the Mid Florida MLS. They are not created by me, Michael Saunders and Company or the Sarasota Association of Realtors. Trendgraphix.com works with 48 MLS systems in 18 states. I work with the Mid Florida MLS every day and see inventories far lower than where they were in 2008. I believe their data is reliable.
Inventories of homes and condos did decrease in 2008 and no it was not banks pulling their foreclosures off the market to keep values up. It was a combination of properties selling and more transparency in the market that lead sellers to remove their overpriced homes from the market.
YOU SAID: "Secondly if I can draw a straight line from 1/08 to current date a basically a zero degree angle, then pending sales has not really picked up. Basically, not really much difference from 2009 to now. "
I can give you exact numbers of pending sales:
February 2008 - 614
February 2009 - 832
February 2010 - 1,005
February 2011 - 1,155
See the steady rise year after year? Pending sales of 2/11 are nearly double the sales for the same month in 2008. Pretty substantial in most people's eyes and this is with half the inventory.
YOU SAID:"Lastly, with the exception of a small percentage of the higher priced market no changes are taking place. As a matter of fact no improvement in the real estate market can take place until employment across the country increases significantly. Not really that complicated. I due respect your enthusiasm, although quite a bit not realistic. "
I completely disagree. Changes are taking place. You can see that when you look at the raw numbers.
Properties for sale:
February 2008 - 13,047
February 2009 - 9,400
February 2010 - 7,126
February 2011 - 6,670
February 2008 - 614
February 2009 - 832
February 2010 - 1,005
February 2011 - 1,155
When you compare 2/2008 to 2/2010 the pending sales are nearly twice as much and inventory is virtually half. Our inventory is at a 6 year low. Supplies dropping and demand increasing leads to a better market.
Regardless, I do appreciate your comments.
Marc
Posted on Tuesday, March 22nd, 2011 at 7:03pm.
Sir,
With all respect, the above graph and corresponding numbers don't lend much credence to your enthusiasm.
Two glaringly obvious facts are that the number of houses for sale in Jan 08 just magically disappeared seeing that the ratio of available homes vs sold are tremendously different. I guess sellers just took their houses off the market? I think not. Maybe the banks took them off, to keep values up?
Secondly if I can draw a straight line from 1/08 to current date a basically a zero degree angle, then pending sales has not really picked up. Basically, not really much difference from 2009 to now.
Lastly, with the exception of a small percentage of the higher priced market no changes are taking place. As a matter of fact no improvement in the real estate market can take place until employment across the country increases significantly. Not really that complicated. I due respect your enthusiasm, although quite a bit not realistic.
Posted on Tuesday, March 22nd, 2011 at 5:45pm.