Luxury Real Estate

 

THE MARKET from my Broker, Michael Saunders, viewpoint:
>>> Here are the highlights from her article:
  * "The Gulf Coast waterways, beaches and fishing grounds have absolutely NOT been impacted by the BP oil spill—nor are they expected to be."
  * "Powerful loop currents far offshore will actually drag the oil away from us. Regrettably, the oil slick will do its damage elsewhere. "
  * We have award-winning beaches with powdery white sand... as as pristine as they ever were.
  * "Our Gulf and bay waters are a refreshing shade of Caribbean blue and our late Spring weather couldn’t be more ideal for enjoying every precious minute of your hard-earned vacation. Plus, if you’ve ever considered owning a second home or vacation property here, you are looking at prices that haven’t been this low since the turn of the century."
  * "Even though the first time home buyer tax credit expired at the end of April, buyers in our market are still anxiously lining-up to take advantage of the great money-saving incentives that still exist, notably bottoming home prices and low interest rates. Home buyers in the under $300,000 market are even more eager to lock-in the right property; as inventories have dropped dramatically and prices in this category have actually risen over the past few reporting periods. Even so, the March 2010 median home price of $150,000 represents nearly a 60 % rollback from Sarasota County’s boom-time high of $362,000, recorded in December 2005."
  * "As encouraging as this news is, much more work needs to be done to complete our market’s recovery, especially in the higher price brackets. For instance, as of April 2010 our market shows a 32.6 month supply of properties priced over $1 million, based on April’s rate of sales. That’s nearly five times the supply customarily considered normal and healthy in a balanced market! Compare this to the market for properties under $300,000—which presently has a 5.4 month supply of available homes—and you’ll see that sellers of luxury properties must remain extremely diligent in pricing their homes aggressively at or below comparable competitive properties."