Perry Corneau was quoted in the April 21st, 2011 edition of Sarasota’s newspaper.
Published: Thursday, April 21, 2011 at 12:40 p.m.
Condominium sales spiked sharply higher in Southwest Florida in March, to levels not seen since the spring and summer of 2005. The 429 sales in the Sarasota-Bradenton market represented a 32 percent gain from February and a 12 percent rise from March 2010. In Charlotte County-North Port, the 87 condo sales marked a 32 percent improvement from February and 29 percent from a year ago, data released this week by Florida Realtors showed.
A shrinking inventory in most areas of the three-county region also caused prices to stabilize after reaching Great Recession lows earlier this year. But prices were still down 14 percent in Sarasota-Bradenton and 19 percent in Charlotte County-North Port from March 2010.
“The people buying are the same people who wanted to buy in 2006 when the market turned down,” said Perry Corneau, a condo specialist with Signature Sotheby’s International Realty. “They’ve just been waiting for the right time.”
Corneau and other agents said they have seen a lot of Canadians this year who are taking advantage of relatively strong exchange rates. ”Everybody is paying cash,” Corneau said.
Across Florida, condo sales also were up considerably when compared with both February and a year ago, and prices experienced the same firming trend. A total of 9,703 units changed hands, 39 percent more than February and 24 percent more than in March 2010. The statewide median price climbed 9 percent to $84,300 from February, but was down 11 percent from a year ago.
“Overall inventory is dropping,” said Scott Norris, a Coldwell Banker agents who keeps running inventory totals on his website, scottnorris.com. ”When inventory drops, the least desirable units get left on the market — the ones that don’t have the great views and are not in great shape. Properties that are nice go quickly, especially if they are priced right,” Norris said.
His inventory charts show that the number of unsold condos in Sarasota County have declined from a high of nearly 3,500 in March 2007 to under 2,000 last month. In Manatee County, inventories have dropped from a high of about 2,800 in March 2007 to less than 1,200 today.
But nowhere in the region has experienced a more dramatic drop than Lakewood Ranch, where unsold condos have dwindled from a high of more than 400 in December 2006 to just 50 in March. Norris and other agents say those numbers could rise again when banks start refining foreclosures, but for the moment market conditions are improving. ”As long as inventories stay down, the market has to improve,” Norris said. “It just takes time.”
Nationwide, condo sales increased 1.6 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 650,000 in March from 640,000 in February, but are 4.1 percent below the 678,000-unit pace of a year ago. The median condo price was $153,100 in March, which is 10.1 percent below March 2010.
In Sarasota-Bradenton, the median was $125,900 last month, down just $200 from February. The median in Charlotte County-North Port was up 9 percent to $74,200 from February. ”Price is what drove sales,” said Marc Rasmussen, an agent with Michael Saunders & Co. in Sarasota. “Buyers are finding good properties that are priced correctly in almost all segments.”
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