David Barr's Sarasota and Venice Real Estate Blog

Have you thought about hiring a high volume Realtor, or one of the "luxury" brokerages to list your Sarasota home for sale? Think about this: If you have a problem, what are the chances you can talk to the actual person you hired to list your home? Does the "team" business model in real estate give you real customer support? And if a Realtor has 10 or more properties they are listing and marketing at the same time, how often can they hold an Open House for yours? This last point is most important: Our price per square foot for luxury properties is far below that of Naples or Miami. Sarasota has just as nice beaches, with just as vibrant an arts and cultural scene than both those cities. When there's little competition other than to get your home sold, it's not a good recipe to get you the very best price for your luxury property. If you think the Sarasota luxury property market is handled by too few, resulting in low prices,...

Inman News is the real estate version of the Wall St. Journal for real estate agents and brokers.  I gain a lot of valuable information from this source, as well as engage in interesting debates on articles posted by contributors to Inman. I recently got involved in a debate with an Inman contributor who says that forcing people to register to view homes for sale on their website, resulted in more leads. The contributor used terms I consider old school.  Do you want to be "captured", "forced", or "taught" while you are looking for homes online?  I find those terms outdated, and a bit rude.  I believe that you as a prospective home buyer or seller who is looking for homes online should not be treated like internet prey. My philosophy in gaining your trust as a new customer is to provide answers to the most common issues affecting your real estate purchase or sale in the Sarasota area.  I have created unique content on my real estate website, www.davi...

I just read an article from Inman News, the real estate news source, about Trulia's changes to their "listings" and their mobile app. I've blogged about Zillow's inaccurate data several times, and Trulia is not much different.  Trulia scrapes local tax data and posts pre-foreclosure and foreclosure properties as available for sale, when they are not.  Every single day, I respond to questions from confused buyers on the Trulia forum about these types of homes. Trulia is touting updates and changes to their mobile app in an effort to get buyers to use it and sell advertising on the app to real estate agents. For buyers, the same inaccurate Trulia "listings" will show up on their mobile app.  I can imagine a buyer pulling up outside a home they found using the Trulia mobile app, calling the featured real estate agent from the app, and asking about a home that isn't for sale.  End result:  a disappointed buyer and an agent who paid for the privile...

Almost without fail, out of town buyers, especially buyers from Canada, are interested in Sarasota and want to buy a condo as an investment. There's myriad reasons why condos are no longer the best choice for real estate investors.  Consider the following: 1) Condo prices are increasing faster than rents; 2) Condos in the entry level price range up to $150,000 are seeing multiple offers in a very competitive field of buyers; 3) Condo association fees average $300 per month, and will only go up; 4) Many condo associations restrict owners from renting to significant segments of the population, for example, tenants with pets. The monthly expenses for an investor are virtually the same for a condo or a single family home, by the time you account for insurance and maintenance costs for single family homes.  Despite this, single family homes, in my opinion, represent a better choice for real estate investors because: 1) Single family homes rent faster than condos; 2) Si...

I know this may come as a shock to many potential Sarasota real estate buyers, especially those from Canada.  Here's the bad news: we are experiencing the beginning of a shortage in real estate listings and available housing.  Read more here  about Tampa Bay and the Sarasota area, and here about South Florida and the Miami area. About a year and a half ago, we had well over 1500 bank owned foreclosure listings for sale in Sarasota, Manatee, and Charlotte Counties.  As of this writing, there are a total of 521. I could give a lot of statistics about how many months inventory of homes we have now versus a year ago, but in the real world, working with buyers, the situation is frustrating.  The hot properties are receiving multiple offers, from first time buyers and real estate investors looking to get into the market now.  Cash buyers are beating out those that are getting a mortgage. We haven't quite experienced the full swing to a seller's mark...

Harbor Acres is an upscale neighborhood, west of the Trail , close to downtown Sarasota , Lido Beach, and Siesta Key beaches.  Harbor Acres features a mix of new construction, waterfront homes and original ramblers and split level homes without water frontage. Harbor Acres, Sarasota FL map courtesy of Bing Maps The wide range of architecture and waterfront property versus non-waterfront property creates a wide range of prices in Harbor Acres.  As of this writing there are 3 homes in Harbor Acres actively listed for over $5 million.  However, since December 8, 2012, only 4 homes have sold in Harbor Acres, the most expensive being $1.1 million.  This property was at one time originally listed for sale for $1,885,000, a dramatic price reduction of 29%. See the report here by clicking here . Some interesting information comes out of this data.   One fact that jumps out is that a couple of brokerages control most of the listings.  The second is...

I just updated my best deals page on davidbarrhomes.com and there's one in particular that has been languishing on the market for over a year. Check out the property on Hawk's Harbor Drive in Bradenton.  This is a waterfront home located just north of SRQ Airport and west of the Trail.  Many homes in this area are on small lots and do not have a pool, but this one does, along with a dock and a boat lift. Do you have a lot of toys?  This home has a 9-car garage.  Need room to spread out?  It has over 5700 of air conditioned living space. The last sale price was over $1.5 million in 2005 and it's listed as a short sale at $725,000.  What a great deal for so much house in such a great location. Interested buyers, contact me with any questions.

My last two blogs focused on national housing price trends and how they affect the local Sarasota real estate market. Some brokerages seem to think that all the lovely people filling our restaurants, hotels, and beaches in season signals a return to healthier days for Sarasota's real estate market.  This overly simplistic analysis does not take buyer psychology into account, and results in sellers overpricing homes in the false expectation that values are going to be on the upswing. Yesterday there was another article on Yahoo Finance from CNN Money showing that potential homebuyers lack confidence in the market.  This is significant because the vast marjority of home buyers in the Sarasota are come from out of state or overseas.  They read these articles and see that values in markets like Tampa made new lows in 2011. These buyers do not have to buy, and as I blogged earlier, they are motivated by what they deem are the "best deals", whether those deals are in Sa...

More and more, I believe the answer is NO. If you are considering a short sale, you are likely already in financial stress.  You don't have to pay money to a title company or real estate attorney to handle your short sale for you. The short sale negotiation industry grew out of the need for real estate title companies and attorneys to increase their income as a result of the real estate downturn.  Sharply reduced sales meant sharply reduced revenue.  To make up for this, title companies and real estate attorneys marketed their services to homeowners and real estate agents. The services were marketed to include the mundane tasks most real estate agents can't or won't undertake, including collecting the seller's financial information, disclosures, and keeping constant contact (supposedly daily) with the seller's lender to push the transaction to the head of the line with the lender, who is likely overwhelmed with the volume of short sales and foreclosures. The...