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SRQ DAILY Apr 30, 2016

"The Sarasota Real Estate Market is an example of health and sustainability."

- Michael Moulton, Michael Saunders and Company
 

[The Report]  Day at the Races
Susan Nilon, susan.nilon@gmail.com

If you are a political junkie like I am, then the biggest races to watch are not on the national stage but the local ones. Let’s jump right in.

House District 72

The District 72 House race has given me a little bit of whiplash with incumbent Ray Pilon announcing that he is stepping away to run for the open District 28 Senate seat vacated by Senator Nancy Detert. We now have two newcomers: Edward James III (D) and Alex Miller (R). James has been working his campaign for almost a year. I’m worn out just following him on social media as he seems to be everywhere. From supporting actual runners by handing out water bottles with his logo on it, volunteering for Habitat for Humanity, and reading to elementary school children, he has set a new standard of how a race is run. He has made it not just about how much money you can put in your campaign account—$84K—but how many people you can really connect with. Miller just entered the race and loaned her campaign $50K, but has raised another $4K. And while I am told that she will have a lot of financial backing, she is still a huge unknown quantity to the voting public.

House District 73: This is the strangest race yet. Joe Gruters raised $119K for his first fundraiser and is off helping Donald Trump become president. James Golden has run before against Vern Buchanan for the US House; he only has $100.00 in his account. And the only person who appears to be actually working the campaign trail is Steve Vernon, who has $9K in his account. I don’t know what to make of this race. Either Gruters thinks he can just walk into the seat or is secretly hoping to lose. And unless the other two can do what James is doing in the other House race, it won’t be much of a race to watch at all. 

House District 74

Incumbent Julio Gonzalez (R) and challenger Manuel Lopez, Jr. (D) have been incredibly quiet compared to the first time Gonzalez ran for office. The Gonzalez/DeNapoli race in 2014 was the most expensive (and bloodiest) battle in the state. Things will start heating up with the summer temperatures, but until then Gonzalez can sit back and enjoy the recognition he earned from his two years in office.

Senate District 23

This race is not going to be easy to call. Let me say that I am told that there will be another Democrat challenger, which will give us two primaries in August. Republicans have produced five candidates; four have run several successful campaigns. As of today, the campaign finances numbers break down like this: Greg Steube (R) $230K, Doug Holder (R) $206K, Ray Pilon (R) $110K, Nora Patterson (R) $100K, Rick Levine (R) 3K, and Frank Cirillo (D) $1K. This would explain why Steube threw the first punch last week at Holder with a negative letter. Where once the two shared rides to Tallahassee as House members, they now see each other as direct competition. Holder has the advantage, terming out of his House seat two years ago and running steady for the Senate ever since. Steube did not decide to leave his seat until just a few months ago, where I believe he would have walked into his final term in the House. His name recognition does not go as far south as Holder’s does. And let’s be honest, that is where votes come from for this race.

Let’s talk about the two who have won countywide: Patterson and Pilon. Both Patterson and Pilon served on the county commission; however, Patterson has the immediate advantage of serving 16 consecutive years before she was termed out in 2014, and before that eight consecutive years on the City Commission. Pilon, a former Sarasota law enforcement officer, served one term on the County Commission, three terms in the House, and years in between working for the Peace River Manasota Regional Water Supply Authority, which puts him in all four counties of the surrounding areas. 

The newcomer is Levine.  He announced his candidacy long before he ponied up money to qualify and has only recently participated in the debates. With no name recognition, he is a complete unknown. 

Now I know I did not include the PAC money rumbling around town. And there are some candidates who technically haven’t filed as of yet. But there is still time, and a lot more to savor. So let’s just sit back and enjoy the show.   

Susan Nilon is the host of The Nilon Report and a member of the American Civil Liberties Union. Contact her at Susan.Nilon@Gmail.com. 

[Real Estate]  Prices on Rise; Can it Continue?
Michael Moulton

The Sarasota Real Estate Market saw yet another month of double-digit, year-over-year median price growth. Repeating a statement made in my last month's market report, the median sale prices in Sarasota fell 60-percent at the floor of the market collapse. Since the lowest median prices were recorded in 2009, Sarasota has regained about 40-percent of that dip. 

Also important is that for the last several months, despite the significant increase in median price over prior year, the month-to-month growth is relatively steady and showing no signs of being frenzied or adverse. So, in answer to the question posed in this month's title—YES, in my opinion the Sarasota Real Estate Market is growing at a healthy pace and YES, there is adequate room for median prices to continue to rise at the moderate pace we have been seeing in recent months.

It would have been hard to miss the many recent articles reporting that February 2016 had fewer transactions that last year. The Realtors Association of Sarasota and Manatee reported that the number of sales in the Sarasota Real Estate Market fell 6-percent in February compared to the same month last year, and 3.6-percent for the first two months of the sales year compared to 2015. However, it helps to also review the Sarasota Real Estate Market in more detail to truly understand the impact of a calmed sales pace. 

  • First, last year was a record year for transactions, and continuing at that rapid pace would create instability in the market - we simply do not have the inventory to support the activity rising at double-digit growth month to month. While new inventory is coming into the market, it is barely keeping pace with the void left from the sales activity as it is.
  • With the significant drop in distressed properties on the market, actual number of transactions may be under last year's, but the dollar volume of the transactions has grown exponentially in the last year. 
  • As a result of the plunge in distressed properties, numbers of transactions under $200,000 have fallen more than 50-percent in the last year, which made a great impact on total sales statistics.
  • In contrast, in the luxury market where the majority of my work is done ($1 million and above), the number of properties sold in February was 43-percent higher than last year, with pending sales expected to close in the next couple of months also seeing growth over prior year.

With our sales activity holding relatively steady to last year, I believe the Sarasota Real Estate Market is an example of health and sustainability, and ripe to meet market projections of 5-percent increase in sales by year-end and price appreciation in the 10- to 12-percent range for all types and price points combined.

Looking at the real estate market on a more macro level, The Conference Board released its March consumer sentiment survey this week. According to their report, Americans are very optimistic of the business market conditions going into the next six months. This sentiment is important as there is a proven strong relationship between the financial market performance and sales of luxury properties. For the mid-market, a strong jobs picture and growing manufacturing affects housing decisions, and those are both also showing positive consumer attitudes.  

In our microclimate here in Sarasota, add the years of underproduction of new homes and condominiums that caused tightened inventories, attractive interest rates, a steady flow of new listings coming online, and recovered home equity for would-be buyers, and I anticipate that the Sarasota Real Estate Market has the foundation it needs to stay on its steady upward trajectory.

Michael Moulton is a certified residential specialist broker-associate with Michael Saunders and Company. 

[Letters]  Boom/Bust Cycles into Catch-22

Mr. [Tom] Barwin, if this note comes off as critical, please excuse as that is not the way I intend it to sound.

Your solutions that you propose are only minor stopgap measures at best. The City, The County and our world is caught up in a Catch-22 situation. We are caught up in an economic growth, no-growth cycle. Florida and the world itself is caught up in a boom or bust economy. What happened in the last 15 years in Sarasota is a wonderful example of that. In the mid-2000s we built as if there were no tomorrow. Greed took over; we made credit so easy and fraudulent that we had housing being sold to people who were not qualified. This debacle almost took down the world economy and the greatest transfer of wealth in world history happened.

We have the same phenomenon going on at the present. Thousands of hotel rooms, condos, residentials are being built all over Sarasota County and everybody like the last boom/bust cycle is saying the same mantra, “Its different this time.” Well it is not different. Profit, Power and Greed are still the driving forces in the Universe. 

You know and I know as long as we have cheap gas prices, subsidized auto transportation and business pushing for easy growth without regard to the consequences, we will have this auto-dependent economy. I think everybody rationally knows the a massive increase in motor fuel taxes or a dramatic rise in the cost of fossil fuel is the only realistic solution. However, you want to keep your job as you near your retirement goals and I have two interchange sites that for me to sell requires auto-dependent growth.

In the meantime we have Economic Development Commissions, Chambers of Commerce and Tourism Departments just for the purpose of attracting more people to the area. Then we have Economic Development Commissions and Chambers of Commerce lobbying for government to solve the problems caused by this growth. All at no new or increased taxes. Build more roads, buy more beach land and parking, bulldoze more environmentally sensitive land in the path of progress. But come hell or high water, don’t stop growth, solving the problems it causes, or we will replace you with someone who will do the Catch-22 dance! And I will be stuck with my two interchange sites.

Bob Richardson, responding to the "Car Dependency=Traffic Congestion" article by Tom Barwin in the April 23 edition of SRQ Daily. 



[KUDOS]  Siesta Key Rum Brings Home the Gold

The Siesta Key Rum (SKR) team recently took the  Miami Rum Renaissance Festival by storm and brought home the gold. Rum producers from all over the world come to the Miami Rum Rennaisance Festival, billed as the largest rum-specific festival and blind taste test competition in the world, to introduce new products, meet with importers, distributers, buyers and retailers to talk packaging and marketing of rum worldwide. SKR brought along five of their fabulous rums, entering them in a total of three categories. SKR won 'Best in Class' in every category that the company entered. The home-town rum crafters also received two additional gold 'Best in Class' medals for which they already held the first place award. List SKR of winners include: Siesta Key Gold Rum-Best in Class; Siesta Key Spiced Rum-Best in Class; Siesta Key Toasted Coconut Rum-Best in Class; Siesta Key Distiller's Reserve Spiced Rum-Gold medal; Siesta Key Beer Barrel Spiced Rum-Gold medal.  

Siesta Key Rum

[SCOOP]  Water Dance

Professional dancers from Sarasota Contemporary Dance (SCD) and students from New College of Florida, Manatee School for the Arts, Electa Lee Middle School, Rowlett Elementary, Woodland Fine Arts and the Source’s Dream Academy, performed on the Bradenton Riverwalk recently as part of the National Water Dance Project 2016. Local dancers were joined by others from across Florida and over 30 other states. National Water Dance began five years ago as the Florida Waterways Dance Project, which coordinates site-specific water dances across Florida designed to bring awareness of the need for conservation and preservation of our waters. 

Sarasota Contemporary Dance

[SOON]  HD at the Opera House

Don't miss Sarasota Opera's 2016 season of "HD at the Opera House". This series, which debuted in 2014 and more than quadrupled its projected income goal in its first year, has allowed Sarasota Opera to expand its programming from the fall and winter season to year-round. In addition to opera, the 2016 series will include weekly matinee presentations of ballet and theater from some of the world's most famous venues. All showings will occur in the William E. Schmidt Opera Theatre at the Sarasota Opera House. Select presentations will be preceded by a 15-minute welcome and pre-show introduction. 

Sarasota Opera

[SCOOP]  Child Protection Center Event Raises $1.5 Million Over Four Years with Signature Event

Child Protection Center recently held its 4th annual Blue Ties & Butterflies at Michael’s On East with more than 350 attendees adorned in blue, the color for child abuse prevention. Butterfly images danced on the walls and individually hand-painted boxes by Artistic Occasions filled with Beneva Flower’s hydrangea sat in the center of the satin blue-covered tables. This stunning event has raised more than $1,500,000 over the last four years for CPC’s five core programs focused on the prevention, intervention and treatment of child abuse.  

Child Protection Center

[KUDOS]  Mote Wins Image Award

Mote Marine Laboratory and Aquarium’s Community Relations & Communications Department won an Image Award Thursday during the Florida Public Relations Association's 50th Anniversary and Image Awards Ceremony. Mote took home the Judges’ Award in the PR program’s Special Events category for its Tropical Research Laboratory demolition event on February 18 at Mote’s Summerland Key facility. The Image Awards competition provides public relations professionals an opportunity to be recognized for their exceptional efforts and programs. FPRA recognizes the best in research, strategy, implementation and execution in the public relations profession. The Special Events category honors any program developed to commemorate a special event, observance or one-time activity. 

Mote Marine Laboratory and Aquarium

[SOON]  Goodwill Manasota Jobs Fair

Every year during the first full week of May, Goodwill agencies across the United States and Canada celebrate the power of work through local events and promotions. The local Goodwill Manasota Job Connection will be having a Job Fair in celebration of Goodwill Week at its Corporate Campus at 2705 51st Ave. E. in Bradenton this coming Wednesday, May 4 from 9am-1pm. This job fair allows employers the opportunity to share information and to discuss career opportunities within their organization with job seekers and community members. We encourage job seekers to come network and talk with employers on opportunities such as: Co-op, Internship, Seasonal, Part-time and Full-time employment. This is a public event and opened to the community or those looking for staffing needs or employment opportunities. 

Goodwill Manasota

SRQ Media Group

SRQ DAILY is produced by SRQ | The Magazine. Note: The views and opinions expressed in the Saturday Perspectives Edition and in the Letters department of SRQ DAILY are those of the author(s) and do not imply endorsement by SRQ Media. Senior Editor Jacob Ogles edits the Saturday Perspective Edition, Letters and Guest Contributor columns.In the CocoTele department, SRQ DAILY is providing excerpts from news releases as a public service. Reference to any specific product or entity does not constitute an endorsement or recommendation by SRQ DAILY. The views expressed by individuals are their own and their appearance in this section does not imply an endorsement of them or any entity they represent. For rates on SRQ DAILY banner advertising and sponsored content opportunities, please contact Ashley Ryan Cannon at 941-365-7702 x211 or via email

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