David Barr's Sarasota and Venice Real Estate Blog

I just updated my website with Sarasota are best real estate deals:   http://www.davidbarrhomes.com/#!best-deals-sarasota/c142p Sarasota best deal on Hillview St. for sale The updated best deals list includes waterfront homes in Bradenton and Englewood, a large newer 2 story home in Venice under $200K, and a couple of affordable homes in Sarasota just east of the Trail, a hot area for both investors and full time residents. Please contact me if you're interested in touring any of these homes.

What's going on in the foreclosure market in Sarasota right now? Let's talk about inventory first.  The number of available forclosure properties for sale in Sarasota County is staying steady, in a range between 500 and 600 single family homes and condos.  This is, however, down from a peak inventory of between 1500 and 1700 properties for sale in the MLS in 2010 and 2011. The current situation of prices and where the properties are located is the real story behind our area's foreclosures.  A few months ago, there was a fiercely competitive market for properties in Sarasota, just east of Tamiami Trail, listed under $100K.  Those properties were attractive to investors for buy and flip. What seems to be available now are homes and condos in locations that are more conducive to investors looking to buy and hold as income properties.  The rental market in Sarasota continues to be in high demand.  We have few large apartment complexes for an individual i...

This morning I read an article from the Sarasota Herald Tribune about early state foreclosures. Has anyone held an issue of the H/T in their hands lately?  Things must be getting really bad for them.  I think this article is an example why. To summarize the article , early stage foreclosures (technical term: lis pendens) are up for the second month in Sarasota County.  The source?  RealtyTrac. RealtyTrac is part of what I call the unholy trinity of real estate websites (including Trulia and Zillow) who mislead the real estate buying public by posting lis pendens properties they scrape from public tax data websites as available for sale.  None of these companies are licensed real estate brokers, and none of these properties exist to sell real estate.  They exist to draw a large audience through deceptive marketing, and sell that audience to advertisers. I'm not sure why the Herald Tribune bothered publishing this article.  They pounded the drum...

This article was linked on the Drudge Report, so it likely got a lot of hits.  The dire headline:  Foreclosure Sales Flood Market. The basic problem with the article is that it relies on Realtytrac.com as a source.  Ugh. Realtytrac is the same thing as Zillow.  They are not a licensed real estate broker, and they do not have access to MLS data.  They scrape the same property tax assessor websites as Zillow.   As we all know, tax values have little to do with actual market values. Apparently, the doom and gloom for this article comes from the fact that local municipalities have recorded a higher number of foreclosures.  This does not mean these foreclosures are even on the real estate market, but the article says this increase is an indicator of a future glut of distressed properties. In the Sarasota and Bradenton real estate market, a year ago there were approximately 5500 short sale and bank owned properties available for sale the MLS....