Marc Rasmussen's Blog: Sarasota Real Estate

I was reading though the newspaper this morning (online of course) and noticed Harold Bubil's blog post about how AOL real estate is reporting that Sarasota, Florida is the 2nd most undervalued city in the country. You can read the article here. It sounds like they are getting their information from IHS Global Insight.

Sarasota is a relatively upscale community on Florida's west coast. "It's a nice boating community, and they have got a lot of beautiful homes there," says Jack McCabe of Florida-based McCabe Research & Consulting. After home prices plunged 44 percent from the first quarter of 2006 to the first quarter this year, the market presents would-be buyers with some attractive opportunities. IHS Global Insight considers the median home price in… Read Full Post

 

 

Sarasota Foreclosures

Below are some statistics on the Sarasota/Bradenton foreclosure market. All data is from the Sarasota and Manatee counties. All of this information comes from the Sarasota MLS.

• 12,072 total properties for sale
• 234 bank owned properties
• 2,112 properties in short sale or pre-foreclosure

2009 Sales of Foreclosures and Short Sales

• 7,344 total properties sold
• 1,037 short sale or pre-foreclosure properties sold
• 1,935 bank owned properties sold
• Bank owned properties and short sales make up about 40% of the sales in the Sarasota and Manatee county area.

Foreclosure

A foreclosure is essentially a bank owned properties. This is a home or condo…

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Below is a chart showing Sarasota, Florida county inventories, sales and pending sales for the last 3 years. It is great to see declining inventories, more sales and more pending sales. It sounds like a market bottoming out.

Notice the red line on the chart which shows pending sales as well as the dark green bar at the bottom which shows closed sales. As prices have declined buyers have jumped off the fence. There are still a lot of people waiting for the bottom. When the overall concensus thinks the bottom is here you will see even more buying from people trying to time it. Think of the wealth that could be created in this country with so many people buying around the bottom and then a normal appreciation rate for the next 10-15 years.

Sarasota Today…

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Lido Shores Home

This home at 1301 Westway Drive on Lido Key sold recently for $7,423,500. This is a 5 bedroom, 5.5 bathroom, 6.580 square foot home on Lido Shores in Sarasota, Florida. The list price was $8,999,000. It took 329 days to receive a contract.

1301 Westway Drive

One of Sarasotas prettiest homes on the azure waters of New Pass in sought-after Lido Shores! This international designers home shows like nothing else in Sarasota with its elegant, but livable sophistication. Superb quality one expects in a home of this caliber is present everywhere: walnut floors, wonderful woodworking, stone terraces, 3 fireplaces. This is quiet luxury. Handsome 2 story living room, formal… Read Full Post

I have a client that has been in a 5 month process to buy a short sale. It has been very frustrating for everyone, me, buyer, seller, new lender and listing agent. The short sale process is utterly ridiculous. We even have an attorney working for both the buyer and seller to try to get the short sale approved. My client has remained very calm for the last 5 months waiting for some sort of response from the bank . Of course, we have received the typical vague answers that the banks are programmed to say.

So, out of frustration, my client wrote a letter to Barack Obama about the whole ordeal. He doesn't really expect the President to answer him but I am sure he felt better after he wrote it. I posted the letter below or you can read it here. You might find…

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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…

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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…

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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…

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