If you could position a glass dome over Lakewood Ranch—inclusive of such nearby neighborhoods as Greyhawk Landing and Heritage Harbour—you would have on exhibit a near-perfect microcosm of our region’s accelerating real estate recovery. For within this award-winning community and its many unique neighborhoods, buyers have scooped up the best-priced properties to such an extent that inventories of available homes have been pared down to levels that are at, near—or below—those typically considered normal in a balanced market. Moreover, they are confidently cherry-picking properties across all price ranges, so long as real value is at the core of every transaction.
As a matter of fact, based on the current pace of existing home sales in Lakewood Ranch—especially for properties priced below $150,000, below $300,000 or below $500,000—less than a four month supply is available for purchase in all three of these price ranges. Similarly, for homes priced from $500,000 to $1 million less than a six-month supply is available. Properties priced above $1 million have yet to re-establish a healthy balance—typically defined in the industry as a six to seven month supply, based on the rate of current sales. Yet with its supply now down to less than ten months, even the market for $1 million-plus homes in Lakewood Ranch is approaching equilibrium. Moreover, across all price ranges, less than a five month supply of properties is on hand. (Source: Trendgraphix, June 2010). Although it will be a very long time before sellers see prices rivaling those of 2004/2005, technically speaking Lakewood Ranch is on the threshold of becoming a sellers’ market again.
To pinpoint precisely how dramatically the Lakewood Ranch market has improved, one need only compare today’s level of inventory to that of two years ago when sales were painfully sluggish. Across all price ranges, the inventory has been drawn down from 958 properties in May 2008, to 341 properties in May 2010; a decline of over 64%. The number of properties priced below $500,000 has dropped by 61%; and those between $500,000 and $1 million by 71%. Even the inventory of properties priced above $1 million is down by 68%.
North Port is one of the largest cities by geographic area in Sarasota County. It is conveniently located next to Venice and Port Charlotte, offering many of Florida’s amenities with a small town familiarity. Toledo Blade and Sumter Blvd. act as gateways into this well-priced primary and second home mecca.
North Port has experienced explosive growth in recent years, making it a natural destination for young families as well as those seeking a second home in a warmer climate.
Palmer Ranch is a master-planned community offering its residents the ultimate Florida lifestyle. It is conveniently located near Sarasota’s beaches, downtown, and arts and entertainment district.
The 10,000 acre area is rich in history. It was part of the original land bought by Bertha Honore Palmer around the turn of the 20th century.
What’s not to love about the Internet? Say what you will about its various shortcomings, it still manages to put a universe of useful information at our fingertips virtually as fast as we can type in a request. Entire generations of children will never appreciate the life-changing impact the Internet has had on every aspect of our society—because they’ve never lived a day without it. Frankly, most of us who can still remember what it was like to gather information in a pre-Google world would rather not.
Early on, many real estate industry insiders feared that the Internet would do much more than merely unlock the Multiple Listing System—traditionally accessed only by licensed real estate agents—and make its proprietary information accessible to anyone with a computer. They hypothesized that buyers and sellers would eventually use MLS information pulled freely from the web to effectively circumvent needing an agent at all. With these sites premiering one right after the other—and with consumer acceptance growing quickly—some industry watchers smelled blood in the water; believing that such rapidly evolving technology would ultimately render real estate companies irrelevant and obsolete.
None of this, of course, has proven to be even slightly prophetic. In fact, just the opposite is true. These national web sites have done nothing if not re-confirm your real estate agent’s supremacy as the most capable arbiter of what’s really happening in your local property market. By virtue of the incomplete data these sites must typically use to construct their local market profiles, it has never been more important to begin working with a local professional the moment your search becomes more tightly focused.
It’s not that the information gleaned from such web sites as Zillow, Trulia, Redfin, Realtor.com, RealtyTrac and others is completely erroneous or misleading. Quite the contrary, in fact. These sites are enormously helpful in dishing-up general information about what’s happening in any given market and what properties might be of interest to you. It’s just that by the time their imperfect compilations of local market statistics and trends are gathered, analyzed and served-up for public consumption on the web—typically some 30 to 60 days later, as constrained by most data release timetables—local conditions have usually changed considerably; and many properties of interest have long since sold. Thus it’s not at all unusual or unexpected for their local statistics—which are often flat-out wrong to begin with—to be at even greater variance with what is actually happening in your market right now. You aren’t being misled, so much as being mis-fed statistics that no longer apply—or never did.
Port Charlotte is located between Sarasota and Fort Myers. It sits right at the mouth of Charlotte Harbor, where the Peace River and Myakka River meet. Residents refer to it as the “Jewel on the Harbor,” with a charming personality and beautiful waterfront living. Bayshore Park runs along the whole waterway with fishing piers, kayaking, walking trails, restaurants and picnic pavilions.
The homes in Port Charlotte range from smaller 2-bedroom bungalows to larger Tudor homes and even Mediterranean estate homes. There are also waterfront communities offering carriage homes, single-family homes and estate villas.
In this Ask Darla video, Darla Furst talks talks about whether or not out-of-the-area buyers are continuing to move to Florida and if they are still buying the same type of properties that they have in the past.
Posted by Michael Saunders & Company on May 27, 2010
International buyers have always had a soft spot in their heart for Florida; particularly it’s fabulously cultured West Coast. Not a day goes by that we don’t hear a foreign language—or heavily-accented English—being spoken in close proximity to wherever we happen to be. For this reason, we have gone to great lengths at Michael Saunders & Company to court the international buyer throughout our 35 years of service to the region. We never take lightly the fact that a buyer from England, Canada or the European continent may be just as inclined to buy one of our sellers’ properties as someone from Michigan, Indiana or New Jersey.
Right now in particular, international interest in owning properties here has never been more intense. Maybe it’s our bottoming home prices, the lowest in ten years. Maybe it’s our current mortgage lending rates, the lowest in 50 years. Maybe it’s the fact that the financial turmoil sweeping through the European continent reminds its citizens yet again that America—in spite of its economic ups and downs—is still the safest haven on earth to invest money. Then again, maybe it’s the weather.
Whatever their reason for coming to Southwest Florida, we have long cultivated formalized brokerage affiliations in countries throughout the world whose citizens display a particular fondness for wanting to be here. These exclusive affiliations include such internationally renowned real estate networks as Leading Real Estate Companies of the World, Luxury Portfolio, Christie’s Great Estates, Mayfair International Realty and the European Real Estate Network (or EREN); which are made that much more powerful through Michael Saunders’ active involvement in many of their governing bodies. The end result is a steady stream of customers being constantly referred to Michael Saunders & Company because our network partners can be confident they will receive the individualized service and special attention they need.
The city of Punta Gorda is located between Sarasota and Fort Myers at the mouth of beautiful Charlotte Harbor. Its fine location allows for endless recreation. The deep harbor and 75 miles of deep sailboat water canal frontage make it an excellent sailing and boating location, as listed by numerous magazines and sailing publications.
The homes range in style from canal front homes to waterfront condos. The charismatic Downtown area boasts many historic homes. The residential areas near the heart of downtown feature many brick streets lined with huge royal palms. Several Key West-style homes boast tin-roofs and charming verandas. Smaller bungalows sit slightly further inland and evoke memories of the fishing village of yesteryear.
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