What's Up at the Manatee-Sarasota BIA 8.28.17
Last week I attended a Meyers Research FRAME event in Tampa to hear about how our economy is doing on a local and regional basis. A special thank you goes out to MSBIA member Franklin DiGioia of Meyers Research for the gracious invitation. The Metro Service Areas (MSA) that were included in this comparison are Miami, Tampa, Orlando, Jacksonville, Lakeland and Manatee/Sarasota. Here are a few nuggets that I took away with me:
- New home construction permits are 52% of prerecession high’s
- A total of 85,488 permits were pulled in the last 12 months in these 6 MSA’s, with Manatee/Sarasota having 7,971
- A total of 200,200 jobs were added since the recession in the same MSA’s with Manatee/Sarasota only adding 11,900 jobs. This gives us the lowest Employment to Permit (E/P) ratio in the comparison group of 1.49%
- New vs Existing Home Sales shows New homes costing 38% more, $325,564 for New vs $236,141 for Used, in the comparative group
- Total Sales (July ’16 to June ’17) of 26,917: 3,446 New vs 23,471 Used in the Manatee/Sarasota MSA
- Sarasota County is the most expensive on average at $361,760 when compared to the comparison MSA’s for new home construction
- There is approximately 1.4 months of available “quick move in inventory” in the Manatee/Sarasota MSA for new home construction
- There is approximately 1.8 years of available inventory in the same MSA for new home construction
- Resales have 3.2 months of available stock in our MSA, and
- New home construction prices have leveled off while resales are continuing to increase nominally across the MSA spectrum
It is evident that new home construction is very strong and has little inventory for buyers. Resales are also strong and command 680% of the real estate market in our MSA. Sarasota County is the most expensive MSA for new home construction, and finding labor is more of a struggle for Manatee/Sarasota than the other comparative MSA’s surveyed.
So, what do these numbers really mean to us? We need labor, more ready developments and it’s a great time to be in the new home construction business!