Sarasota-Bradenton home sales buck national and statewide trends

The Sarasota Herald Tribune reported today that the national and state existing home sales plunged in March of 2007 compared to March of 2006. However, the Sarasota-Bradenton real estate market was a bright spot in an otherwise dismal national and state real estate market during March.

While national sales of single-family homes fell 13 percent and statewide sales dropped by an even larger 28 percent, Sarasota-Bradenton saw a 16 percent increase last month compared with March 2006.

Other important highlights from the article:

Sarasota-Bradenton posted 834 home sales in March of 2007 compared with 721 a year ago.

"It's definitely the time to buy," said John Schaub, a Sarasota investor and author of "Building Wealth One House at a Time." "There are more and more opportunities out there."

Even the hard-hit condominium market saw a turnaround in March. Sales rose 7 percent to 378 from 354 during March 2006.

The median condo price in Sarasota-Bradenton rose 5 percent to $276,200 from $264,000 in March 2006.

"Price is dictating everything, It's all about getting sellers to understand where the market is and getting properties priced where they will sell."

and the best quote of the article:

"I think sellers in our market have a clearer picture of what their properties are worth," said Sky Sotheby's agent Marc Rasmussen. "They had trouble with that in 2006. Now buyers who were on the fence last year are feeling more comfortable about jumping in."


Remember the contrarian investor - they seek opportunities to profit from situations when the crowd mentality leads to unreasonable valuations for assets, either on the upside or the downside. In 2009 will we be saying, "I wish I had bought in 2007 when everyone was selling"?