Marc Rasmussen's Blog: Sarasota MLS

The chart above shows the number of single family homes and condos for sale, under contract and sold over the last 5 years in Sarasota, Florida. The light green lines represent the number of homes and condos for sale. The red line shows the number of properties under contract and the dark green line represents the number of sold properties.

From an owner of Sarasota real estate and a Realtor selling in Sarasota it is great to see the sharp decline in inventory, the rise in pending sales and closed sales. It looks like we still need to absorb some of the inventory in the market. Based on closed transactions we currently have jut over a 10 month supply of properties for sale. Real estate "experts" profess that a 6 to 7 month supply is normal. If we get a…

I've noticed something interesting lately in Sarasota, Florida. Several beach front & bay front homes have recently gone under contract. Just off the top of my head I know of 3 beach front homes on north Longboat Key, 2 on Siesta Key, and a bay front home on Lido Key (shown above) for $8,999,000 have gone under contract. There also have been several homes and lots on the beach that have closed within the last 60 days. We just had a home on Bird Key close for $4.75 million.

Is the smart money buying?

Sarasota seems to be forming a bottom. The low end of the market is selling quickly. I cannot imagine prices will drop too much more in that segment of the market. If you ever wanted to get into buying…

I was in the gym the other day talking to a buddy of mine. His friend has his house on the market. After he told me that I could immediately see frustration in his face. I got the, "Why hasn't my house sold yet?" question from the guy. It is a pretty common question that many Realtors get from sellers.

Here are 5 reasons why your home may have not sold.

1) Lousy Photos

There are a lot of properties out there for sale. Buyers typically have several properties to choose from so sellers really need to set themselves apart. Roughly 9 out of 10 buyers start their search on the internet. If you have limited photos or if they are blurry or dark you really hinder your chances of having the buyers want to…

Foreclosure is the current buzz word in the real estate world. I get frequent requests from home buyers who want to only look for bank owned properties. While there are some tremendous values to be found in properties owned by banks those are not the only properties out there that are priced well. If you are only looking at foreclosures you are probably missing out on other great properties with realistic and motivated owners.

Sarasota Foreclosure Statistics since 1/1/2009

• 1,462 bank owned properties sold in Sarasota & Manatee counties
• 4,876 properties sold in Sarasota & Manatee counties
• Bank owned properties amount to 30% of total sales
• Longboat Key - 3 sales
• Siesta…