Timely Information on the Sarasota Real Estate Market

Sarasota Condo Sales Look Stong as Inventory Holds Steady

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Unsold Inventory of Sarasota Condomiums

There were 2035 unsold condominium units in Sarasota County at the end of November 2010. This marked the 16^th consecutive month where the unsold condominium inventory was +/- 200 units from 2,000. The low in the past 16 months was 1968 units at the end of September 2010 while the high was 2198 units 16 months ago in August 2009 .  These numbers are about 38% off the high of 3532 units listed for sale at the end of March 2007.

Distressed inventory is a minor component of overall condo inventory. As of the end of the month, there were just 45 bank owned condos in Sarasota and another 205 listed as short sales. This makes the total of all condo distressed inventory at about 12% of total inventory.

Sales of Sarasota Condomiums

Across all Sarasota County, 1733 condominiums have sold year to date through November 30, 2010. This year will be the second consecutive year of growth in sales since the crash. The first year of slow down in sales was 2006 when only 1,064 condos sold, down 50% from 2005 when 2,131  condos sold. In 2007 sales picked up slightly to 1291 units then dropped again in 2008 to 1,117 units.

Much of the bouncing around in unit volume is due to new construction closings in downtown Sarasota.  In 2004 for example, virtually all of the residences in the large Renaissance project were closed out shortly after the building was issued a certificate of occupancy.  All of these sales were recored in 2004 even though the buyers may have gone to contract over the past 2 years. New construction closings distort demand by posting all of the sales in a period of months rather than the across the years that it actually took to sign up all of the buyers. The same thing occurred in 2005 when 100 Central, the Plaza @ 5 Points, and a few smaller projects added over 300 units in sales to the 2005 total. Finally, in 2007 Alinari and Broadway closed out adding over 300 sales to 2007.

If you strip out new construction sales from prior years, 2010 is going to be a huge year for condo sales in Sarasota nearly equaling a boom year.