Sarasota Real Estate Sales

Sales Figures for October Indicate "Orderly Decline"

From the statistics gathered by the Sarasota Association of REALTORS MLS in November 2006, existing home sales in our market and nationwide are showing stablization.

The Sarasota MLS stats show 5,623 single-family homes and condos have sold year to date through October 31, 2006. These figures are closer to the sales figures for the same period in 2001 and 2002. The boom years of 2003, 2004 and 2005 produced sales of almost 10,000 per year. These figures tend to skew the results when comparing this year with the previous three years.

Prices are stablizing along with sales as the median price single-family home is now $345,000 year-to-date through October. This is a drop of only 1.4 percent. The median Sarasota condo sale price for the same period was $300,000, an increase of almost 2 percent from the $295,000 median price of 2005.

NAR's chief economist, David Lereah, says "when consumers recognize that home sales are stablilizing, we'll see the buyers who've been on the sidelines get back into the market, and sales will be at more normal levels in the wake of the unsustainable boom that we saw last year."

If you think now is the time to start your search for Sarasota homes or Sarasota condominiums, email Annette Smith for updates on properties in Sarasota.