Wednesday, September 06, 2006

September 9th Inventory of Sarasota Homes & Condos

Again, inventories have not moved much since I last looked in the middle of August. Again, I think it is a positive sign that they are not increasing. Athough some properties are moving many of the buyer and sellers appear to be in a stalemate.

September 9th
4,433 single family homes for sale
3,002 condominiums for sale

August 17th
4,450 single family homes for sale
3,051 condominiums for sale

July 22nd
4,486 single family homes for sale
3,062 condominiums for sale

I searched Sarasota, Lakewood Ranch, Lido Key, Longboat Key, Siesta Key, Bird Key, Casey Key, Nokomis and Osprey for these numbers. MLS data is believed to be accurate but not guaranteed.

1 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Marc,

Thanks for your continued efforts in posting the MLS numbers and referencing good articles.

The Sarasota RE market is indeed in a holding pattern, but I do not take it as necessarily a positive sign.

Based on the continuing trend of houses sitting on the market longer than "normal", it really comes down to which party is forced to take action.

The buyers do not feel compelled to buy as there are plenty of homes to choose from while the sellers continue to keep their asking prices too high.

When the economy cools down further in 2007, the sellers (many of them "fence-sitters"), will be forced to drop their prices lower than they ever imagined in order to lure a buyer.

Much like those people who kept their asking prices too high 6 months ago and are now forced to drastically drop their prices, there will be more who will be in the same situation or worse 6-9 months from now.

An example is someone who has an older, well kept 3 BR/2 BA house in a decent neighborhood. There are many of those houses in Sarasota for $250K, but they're not selling. Those types of homes will sell at $200K to $225K right now. However, if the seller is then forced to sell in 6 months, they'll be asking $225,000 but they won't sell until the price is dropped to $175,000.

IMO, sellers still have their prices 15%-20% too high.

The only thing that could REALLY change things around would be a drastic drop in oil prices. If gas prices would come back to $1.75 to $2 a gallon, the economy would pick up and the buyers would begin to come back.

Barring this event, I see further weakness in the RE market.

The article you posted from M. Anthony Carr is excellent. Every seller should take his advice if they're serious about moving their house.

9:41 AM  

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