Real estate agents count on snowbirds as Manatee-Sarasota sales record looms

MANATEE -- On the verge of closing out the hottest home sales year in a century, real estate agents in Manatee and Sarasota counties are already looking forward to 2016.

Having watched sales drop slowly since July, market professionals are cautiously optimistic that homeowners who have been waiting to bring their properties to market will start doing so soon to capitalize on the annual influx of winter residents. That, they say, would bolster existing home inventories that have been low all year.

"People are getting more educated on what needs to be done to list their home and important things to prepare it to get the money they are looking for," said Fran DeDona, a Realtor with the Bradenton office of Michael Saunders & Co.

Sales of existing homes have dropped off substantially the past few months, but remain well ahead of 2014, which holds the all-time sales record of 19,389 homes sold. In November, 1,304 existing homes sold between the two counties, pacing the market to a sales total of 19,020 for the first 11 months of the year.

According to the Realtor Association of Sarasota and Manatee, the record will likely fall this year. More than 1,000 homes have sold between the two counties each month in 2015.

Multiple Listing Service statistics released this week show November existing home sales in Manatee and Sarasota counties were still relatively strong. In the single family home market, Manatee County's 364 sales was down from 417 in 2014, but the median selling price of $270,000 was nearly 15 percent higher than at the same time last year. Sarasota County sales and median prices increased year over year. The median selling price of 540 home sales in November was $228,750.

Condo and townhome sales were up in both counties, totaling 400. Prices increased year over year by 12 to 14 percent.

Sales for the year peaked in midsummer at about 1,700 per month in June and July.

Stafford Starcher, president of the Realtor association, said he believes sales will stay strong in 2016.

"We should anticipate a busy market in the coming months with staying power throughout the year," he said this week.

Real estate professionals at all levels of the home market are expecting more homeowners to list in January. Diane Gallagher, a broker associate with Wagner Realty who primarily sells homes priced more than $400,000 in East Manatee, said she is waiting on several promised listings to start the year. At the moment, the number of homes she can show in this price range is "really low." Overall inventories for existing homes are sitting between three and four months in Manatee and Sarasota.

Having more would help, especially if the weather turns frightful in the northern states.

"I think the people who are listing their homes want to capture the snowbirds who are running down here during that time period," Gallagher said.

Pam Goodwin, who teams with DeDona at Michael Saunders selling homes largely for less than $400,000, said the story is the same with her sellers.

"I think everyone is waiting for the holidays to be over," she said.

The duo expects to be busy in 2016. Goodwin noted during the fourth quarter of 2015, about 1,700 homes priced less than $400,000 were sold in Manatee County compared with 55 priced more than $1 million.

Cash sales were largely up for November, with more than 70 percent of condos and townhomes selling in cash transactions in Manatee and Sarasota counties. Little more than 38 percent of single family home transactions in Manatee County were for cash. Almost half of Sarasota single family sales were cash transactions.

Florida as a whole has largely mirrored trends in Manatee and Sarasota. The 18,102 single family home sales recorded in November were slightly ahead of a year ago, while the median selling price of those homes jumped 13.6 percent to $200,000. Condos and townhome sales were up 5.7 percent at a median selling price of $150,000, MLS numbers show.

Matt M. Johnson, Herald business reporter, can be reached at 941-745-7027 or on Twitter@MattAtBradenton.

This story was originally published December 23, 2015 at 5:10 PM with the headline "Real estate agents count on snowbirds as Manatee-Sarasota sales record looms ."