‘This is not a housing bubble.’ Despite COVID, Bradenton home sales set records in 2020
In the scary, uncertain days of early 2020, as the COVID-19 pandemic descended on the Bradenton area, nobody was predicting a record year in the sale of existing single-family homes.
During those gloomy days in March, new pending sales of existing single-family homes in Manatee County fell by 33.4 percent, compared to a year earlier.
There were just 492 new pending sales in the Bradenton area, compared to 739 in March 2019, a statistic that would normally be a leading indicator of what was to come.
And yet, the same pandemic helped fuel the demand for homes in the Bradenton-Sarasota area.
In 2020, there were 7,663 closed sales of existing single-family homes in the Bradenton area, 12.3 percent more than in 2019 when there were 6,825, according to the Realtor Association of Sarasota and Manatee.
The year was marked by a transition to more virtual tours of homes, and in some cases, people from more densely populated northern cities with higher tax rates buying sight unseen.
The demand and shrinking inventory of Bradenton homes helped drive the 2020 median price up 8.5 percent to $345,000, compared to $318,000 in 2019. The median price is the exact mid-point of all houses sold.
There was a similar run on Bradenton area condos and town homes during the year. In 2020, there were 3,212 sold, compared to 2,674 in 2019. The median price rose 12.3 percent to $225,000.
In Sarasota County, the sale of existing single-family houses increased 12.1 percent with 9,521 sales in 2020, compared to 8,746 in 2019. The median price rose 12.1 percent to $325,000 in 2020.
Sarasota condo and town home sales increased nearly 12 percent to 4,635, and the median price rose 8 percent to $255,000.
“When the pandemic hit early last year, we weren’t really sure what to expect for real estate. These record number of sales just show the strength and resiliency of our local housing market,” Realtor association president Alex Krumm, broker-owner of NextHome Excellence, said in a press release.
“Sales are up while the number of available homes is down. Importantly, this is not a ‘housing bubble.’ This is purely supply and demand, and as long as we have more buyers than sellers, we’ll continue to see this incredibly strong market in 2021,” Krumm said.
“These numbers point to a market filled with opportunity for sellers. There is still a lot of demand from buyers who are choosing to purchase at record low interest rates and rapidly increase their equity,” Krumm said.
This story was originally published February 17, 2021 at 11:41 AM.
