Why I Bought a Downtown Sarasota Condo

I asked a client of mine to write about why he chose to purchase a downtown Sarasota condo. He was nice enough to write the following:

Downtown Sarasota: Sophisticated, Urban and Manageable

On June 30, we closed on our new home in downtown Sarasota.  It was the culmination of a four-year process that took us to three continents in search of a new place to live.

New York City had been our home for more than 30 years.  We loved the theater, the dance, the music, the museums and the art, the access to some of the world’s best shopping and restaurants.  Those are the positives, but there were negatives, too: the congestion, the prices, the subways at rush hour, and the general pace of things.

We made a list of cities we might consider – Paris; Palm Springs; Santa Fe; Sydney; Saratoga, New York and Vancouver –- and we travelled to each of them at least once to check them out.  We were looking for a manageable, sophisticated urban environment, a reasonable cost of living, and an active arts scene  Each had a lot to offer, but none of them captured both of our fancies or imaginations.

Enter Sarasota.   

Last February my partner was visiting his elderly mother in the Tampa area and decided to take her on an outing.  They ended up in Sarasota.  He called to say he was at Lido Beach, and he had never seen a beach so perfect anywhere in the world.  He gushed about the sand, the breeze and how perfect the water looked. 

A couple of hours later he called again, this time to rave about the downtown area.  “It’s a real downtown with a real Main Street, and there is a restaurant for almost any taste: tapas, seafood, Italian, a steak house, Peruvian, Belgian, French, and a very cool club.  Not only that, but Patty LuPone just played here, Itzak Perlman was playing tonight, and the Joffrey was coming in for a run.”

He had my attention, and we both scheduled a trip down to take a close look.  We called a realtor to show us around. (We called three actually.  We explained we would fly down from New York City for a couple of days, and two of the realtors said they could spare an hour or so for us.) We found the third realtor online, and we contacted him.  In less than an hour, Marc Rasmussen got back to us with pertinent questions about what we wanted and said he would be happy to spend all the time we needed when we visited.

Sure enough, we came back down to Sarasota.  Marc picked us up at our hotel and showed us a variety of properties in different locations and at different price points to give a feel for the market.  Over the next few months, we worked closely with him through numerous emails, text messages, phone calls and visits. 

He always had time for us, always got back to us with helpful and incisive information, and always retained his Rock of Gibraltor calm throughout the emotional roller coaster ride of selecting, negotiating for and closing on a new home.  He even recommended a terrific attorney, Anne Weintraub, and an insurance agent, Robert Ludwig. 

We’ve been in downtown Sarasota for seven weeks now, and there is no buyer’s remorse.  Three or four days go by at a time when we don’t drive our car; we walk to a different restaurant several evenings a week; we just saw a play, “Sylvia,” that we missed in New York a few years ago; we have our tickets for a Diana Kral concert in the fall; and we are choosing among a number of other musicals, dance performances and opera.

In other words, it’s everything we wanted.  A small, manageable urban environment with sophistication that rivals just about anyplace else.

Alan Dee

Below are some photos of the unit they purchased in 1350 Main.