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2011-01-30 15:16:38

Sarasota, FL market is showing strong signs of recovery

Real Estate Report for Year-End December 2010 for Sarasota, Florida

Prepared by Michael Moulton, CRS, Broker-Associate

Michael Saunders & Company

The Sarasota market is beginning the upward curve. We currently have 9 months of overall inventory based on the December closings. Based on the December closings, there are just 7 months of inventory for properties listed under $500,000 compared with 11 months at the beginning of 2010. In the market for $500,000 to $1,000,000 properties there is 15 months of inventory, which is the down from 22 months at the end of 2009 and over at the over $1,000,000 level there is 28 months of inventory. The months of available inventory does vary on a month to month basis depending on that month’s closed sales. The current listing inventory is down 6% from 2009 year end. Six months of inventory is considered a neutral market meaning it is neither a buyers nor seller’s market.

The following statistical data is from information provided through the Multiple Listing Service of the Sarasota Association of Realtors. The following table summarizes what happened in each price segment. The Sold (Closed), Pending, and Listings columns are sales and listings for the month of the report and the Pending and Listed are the current totals of each in the MLS system. The Listed YE ’09 column shows the number of listings at the end of 2009. In this report I further segregated the $1m to $2m and the $2m and above segments of the market from my previous monthly statistics, however the segregated data for the active listings at the end of 2009 is not available.

	Sold	Sold	Sold	Pending	Pending	Listed	Listed	Listed
Houses	Dec	2010	2009	Dec		Dec		YE '09
under $250k	290	3288	3055	331	862	275	1408	1323
$250k - $500k	85	1032	958	91	221	108	802	938
$500k - $750k	28	267	273	10	46	19	302	363
$750k - $1m	11	112	87	15	33	15	233	244
$1m - $1.5m	10	79	68	6	16	18	186	355
$1.5m - $2m	6	32	44	2	8	6	98	incl
$2m - $3m	4	29	29	2	6	10	106	261
$3m & above	1	14	16	3	9	7	112	incl
Totals	435	4853	4530	460	1201	458	3247	3484

Condos
under $250k	147	1699	1431	152	399	200	1254	1204
$250k - $500k	45	507	474	28	68	61	696	700
$500k - $750k	16	184	163	11	21	14	227	326
$750k - $1m	2	68	65	3	7	16	124	160
$1m - $1.5m	3	50	43	7	8	6	85	161
$1.5m - $2m	1	17	21	2	4	7	47	incl
$2m - $3m	0	19	16	1	2	7	47	89
$3m & above	0	2	5	0	0	3	24	incl
Totals	214	2546	2218	204	509	314	2504	2640

Grand Totals	649	7399	6748	664	1710	772	5751	6124

Below is a second table showing the past six years of sales history. The unit sales in 2010 have increased approximately 10% from 2009. Fortunately we have seen an increase in unit sales each of the past four years.

Six Year Sales History

	Sold	Sold	Sold	Sold	Sold	Sold
Houses	2010	2009	2008	2007	2006	2005
under $250k	3288	3055	2039	1236	1017	1584
$250k - $500k	1032	958	1183	1451	1916	2971
$500k - $750k	267	273	335	399	572	904
$750k - $1m	112	87	150	176	226	378
$1m - $1.5m	79	68	112	117	162	249
$1.5m - $2m	32	44	61	58	62	94
$2m - $3m	29	29	46	57	53	78
$3m & above	14	16	35	44	52	52
Totals	4853	4530	3961	3538	4060	6310

Condos
under $250k	1699	1431	847	778	736	1319
$250k - $500k	507	474	443	612	612	1180
$500k - $750k	184	163	197	302	302	502
$750k - $1m	68	65	89	169	169	273
$1m - $1.5m	50	43	55	71	71	165
$1.5m - $2m	17	21	32	44	44	80
$2m - $3m	19	16	22	43	43	67
$3m & above	2	5	10	13	13	35
Totals	2546	2218	1695	2032	1990	3621

Grand Totals	7399	6748	5656	5570	6050	9931