REAL ESTATE: BOOM OR BUST?

EAST COUNTY — Rex Jensen’s restraint told the story.

During a panel discussion May 31, a moderator asked four prominent real-estate executives if the Manatee/Sarasota housing market is booming again.

The hands of Neal Communities CEO Pat Neal, Michael Saunders & Co. CEO Michael Saunders and John Tuccillo, chief economist for Florida Realtors, shot up.

Jensen, Schroeder-Manatee Ranch president and CEO, was more cautious, calling the period a normal part of a cycle, a general upward trend.

Manatee County real-estate leaders agree a rise in sales and prices puts the market in a healthy period. But, they stop short of comparing market conditions to those that led to a real-estate bubble immediately prior to the recession.

Limited supply and pent-up demand could price young families out of houses as builders face labor shortages and increased land costs.

Before the recession, construction employed nearly 23,000 people in Sarasota/Manatee — 21% of the local economy. But, that number shrank to 9,000 as the crisis deepened, Neal said.

The struggle for affordable housing also comes as investors gobble up homes, often times paying in cash and offering more than those who would buy the home to live in it.

At the onset of the downturn, roughly 26,000 properties were for sale in Sarasota and Manatee counties. Supply has dropped to 6,700 homes.

Deanna Atkinson, president of the Manatee Association of REALTORS, says Manatee County currently has three-and-a-half months of inventory on the market.

In her office, 75% of homes sold this year have been cash purchases, compared to 60% last year.

“As a whole, the market is in an upswing,” she said. “But we are all working, so there is not a bubble. We are all working to grow the market responsibly.”

Saunders said agents can do their part in avoiding pitfalls of the past by getting better at their jobs.

“We have become knowledge brokers, not real-estate brokers,” Saunders said. “The American dream is still to own a home. We just need to help consumers sort through the befuddling information that’s available.”

Jensen said 20% of people who visit Lakewood Ranch wanting to buy a home cannot find one within their price range.

In total, there are about 8,000 homes in Lakewood Ranch, not enough to match the 12,000 on-site jobs there.

“We have to come up with a business structure to lower prices in Lakewood Ranch,” Jensen said. “How do we make it work from a cost standpoint?”

Tuccillo warned of consumers’ mistakes of “borrowing from the future,” people who are just starting to pay that debt back.

Atkinson doesn’t want those former tactics to scare people. She encourages homeowners to put their homes on the market now.

“There’s a saying in our business that real estate got us into this mess and real estate will get us out of it,” Atkinson said.

Contact Josh Siegel at [email protected].