Homebuyers can buy bargain-priced repo homes in Sarasota, Florida where houses were sold at an average discount of 7.6 percent in October, based on a home sales study conducted by a real estate research company.
In Sarasota, a house listed at $235,000 was bought at a discount of $19,380 in October. The figure was far above $10,100 or 5.7 percent, which was the average discount in nearby Tampa. Nationwide, the average discount was $5,741 or 2.7 percent off the average asking price.
According to Bill Geller, head of the Sarasota Association of Realtors, real estate agents now are busier than at any other time over the past two-and-a-half years because of the soaring number of buyers and investors taking advantage of bargain prices.
The length of time properties stay on the market has also been falling from 14 months to 9 months.
Realtor Michael Granston said that he has been selling for the past two years a two-bedroom condo unit which is strategically located in downtown Sarasota, but no one has offered to buy. The $1.2-million original asking price has been reduced by $300,000. With the improvement of the market, Granston hopes he will finally find a buyer.
According to Geller, foreclosures are still pulling home prices down in Sarasota so prospective buyers can still buy bargain-priced repo homes in the area.
In November, foreclosure activity in the counties of Sarasota, Charlotte and Manatee climbed back up to its highest level in the area since July. A total of 3,132 foreclosures were posted, much higher than the 2,561 filings in the previous month and higher than the summer record of 3,029 filings. Total filings in Charlotte and in Manatee rose by more than 200 percent.
Statewide, foreclosure activity stepped up. Florida shot down the declining foreclosure trend nationwide and replaced California as the second highest in foreclosure rate in November.
Jack McCabe, a housing consultant in Deerfield Beach, said that Florida continues to struggle from foreclosures because the state had the highest level of speculative building, speculative buying, toxic-loan making and approval of unqualified borrowers.
In Sarasota, nearly 1,300 foreclosures were filed, an increase of 20 percent from the previous month and a jump of 16 percent from November last year. Across Florida, nearly 53,000 households received default or foreclosure filings. With these high numbers of foreclosures, investors and homebuyers can buy bargain-priced repo homes in Florida, particularly in Sarasota.
