Realtors like Sarasota data

Here is an article from the Sarasota Herald Tribune about some Sarasota real estate sales data. Read the entire article here. The Sarasota Board of Realtors have released some sales data that seperates Sarasota from Venice and Bradenton home sales. "On a stand-alone basis, Sarasota's results are better than its immediate neighbors, and that's the point of the group's analysis", said Kathy Roberts, chief executive of the Sarasota Association of Realtors. Sarasota, as a wealthier community, seems to have weathered the market weakness better than less affluent communities.

Here are some interesting statistics that the group released:
Sales during the first nine months of 2002 were 6,202. That jumped to 8,729 in the boom year of 2004, and then leveled off to 8,460 sales for the same period last year.

Despite the Realtors' contention, though, 2006 is still slower so far even than 2002 with 5,158 total home and condominium sales, a 16.8 percent decline from that year.