Upscale home buyers keen on buying opportunities in Sarasota will need to rely on real estate agents specialized on sales of luxury residential properties. Pinpointing the right choice would be a bit difficult without the right professional help as the inventory of luxury Sarasota homes for sale has declined significantly since hitting over 50 months of supply at the height of the 2010 housing crisis.
Industry analysts now estimate that inventory of luxury properties in Sarasota has dropped by nearly 25% since its 2010 peak. At the current level, they believe that inventory is already well below the market balance. Overall, the Sarasota home market trends on a 3.6-month supply as of May 2014, well under the 6-month industry benchmark for a balanced market.
Recent industry data also show a substantial pickup in demand, a trend that could further put a squeeze on available luxury Sarasota homes for sale in the market. In 2013, days on market for luxury homes dropped by 17% and by 46% during the last four years.
Closed sales of properties priced over $1 million rose to 51 in May 2014, up 11% from April and 24% above a year earlier. Sales of luxury residences in Sarasota accounted for 7.5% of all homes sold in May. This is substantially higher in comparison with the 4.5% market share of luxury homes sold nationally for the month.
The Golden Gate Point Peninsula just northwest of the Sarasota downtown is one of the epicenters of luxury home market activity at the local scene. Among the luxury condos sold here so far this 2014 are two units in La Bellasara, ownerships of which have changed hands recently to the tune of $4.25 million and $2.55 million.
Proposed new construction of luxury condos at Golden Gate Point have yet to exert a significant impact in the luxury home market. Notably, development of the planned $37-million Aqua condo tower in the peninsula has been scrapped. The unresolved issue on zoning was cited for the discontinuance of this project for a nine-story condo where units would have been sold at price tags of between $3.3 million and $5.7 million.
With the Aqua condo out of the picture, however, another developer—Baton Rogue-based Level Homes—has bared plans for a 15-unit condominium at Golden Gate Point. The site of the proposed condo is a half-acre parcel at 680 Golden Gate Point, one of the few tracts of land yet undeveloped in the peninsula. Level Homes plans to build half of the condo units with views of Sarasota Bay and the other half with waterfront and downtown views. Plans also call for the construction of boat slips for the condo.
Besides luxury condos, Level Homes is also poised to develop an 8-acre site at the area known as Emerald Forest at Indian Beach west of U.S. 41, a highly favored location for home hunters. The developer is planning to construct single family homes at the $750,000–$1.3 million price points in this proposed community to be called Bayshore.
Moving forward, the Sarasota luxury home market does present many potential buying opportunities. Nonetheless, the constantly shifting market dynamics need to be weighed with the assistance of an expert luxury real estate agent in order to find and close the best possible deal.
SARASOTA, FLORIDA, October 7, 2019 – Property values of communities in the Sarasota-Manatee region now face lesser threat from neighborhood eyesores brought about by abandoned, foreclosed homes. Known in the real estate trade as zombie foreclosures, these properties have shrunk significantly in the region. According to an August report of ATTOM Data Solutions, abandoned […] more>>