September marked the first month in some time when real estate agents in Sarasota and Manatee counties saw less activity than the same month last year. But leaders from the Realtor Association of Sarasota and Manatee remain bullish about the state of the market.

“The market has taken a very typical breather through the late summer but we're still most likely in the ‘calm before the storm,’” said Alex Krumm, broker-owner of NextHome Excellence and the 2021 RASM president. “The same factors that have made this year one of the busiest on record are still in play, and prices will almost certainly be driven higher by a very limited supply of homes.”

The two-county area saw 2,072 sales in September, an 11% drop in number of sales compared to September 2020. Condo sales in particular dropped significantly, about 22.3% in Sarasota and 26.3$ in Manatee, but there were also fewer sales of single family homes, about 5.1% fewer in Sarasota and 4.5% less in Manatee.

But prices continued to rise across the market, showing a continued hunger to purchase property in the region. The median price for sales in Sarasota climbed to $407,000 in Sarasota and $430,000 in Manatee, both jumps over greater than 22% year-over-year.

In this market, cash remains a key medium for transactions, with about 42.6% of single-family home sales and 60% of condo sales moving that way.

All this creates incentive to sell, and the association notes new listings in September outpaced pending sales, despite the inventory of active listings decreasing by 58.9%. There remains less than a month’s worth of inventory in the region. Single-family homes have been listed about seven days before contract date, and condos have been snapped up even faster, an average of six days.

“This year, our market was driven by a tsunami of buyers who wanted to own real estate,” Krumm said. “Next year we'll still have the buyers, but this time, there aren't enough homes to sell to them—and we won't be able to build enough homes to assuage the pressure. The forecast is very, very strong for higher prices in 2022.”