Whether because of Florida’s low-key lockdown policies or just the sudden simultaneous revelation that if you ever want to move to Sarasota it may as well be now, the area saw a sudden boom in interest. As of May, the Sarasota-Manatee area still had barely more than one month’s inventory of homes. The nearly 1,900 active listings at the time marked a much larger supply than was available just a year ago. But home sellers still on average move their homes from new listings to closed sales in less than a week. “Competition will be fierce for the foreseeable future and there isn’t a market correction around the corner,” said Alex Krumm, the broker-owner of NextHome Excellence and this year’s president of the Realtor Association of Sarasota and Manatee. The boom has cemented Sarasota’s reputation as well as one of the top 10 destinations for snowbirds to move and set up their second homes. And Ben Bakker, a Michael Saunders and Company Realtor and President of the Commercial Real Estate Alliance, expects organic growth to continue in the region. “The multiple factors created this fortunate and positive perfect storm for the commercial and residential market, and we still haven’t finished going through those,” he said. But the high demand has also exacerbated an affordable housing issue in a region already grappling with the problem. The average sale price in the area in May climbed over $699,000, hardly a price that will draw young professionals into home ownership. But Bakker said that isn’t an issue contained to Sarasota or even Florida. “It’s not just local. In all four corners of the country, we’re dealing with this problem,” he said. “We need workforce affordable housing at affordable rates and with an affordable inventory just as much as any place in America.”