Realtors roll into growth days

The latest sign of a robust residential real estate market: The membership roster at the Realtor Association of Sarasota and Manatee has swelled.

The association has signed up 75 new Realtors a month through the first three months of the year, says Stafford Starcher, president of the organization. There are now more than 5,000 members in the association, Starcher adds. That total is a combination of members from previous organizations in Manatee and Sarasota; the two groups joined forces to launch the Realtor Association of Sarasota and Manatee Jan. 1.

An increase in Realtors is a positive rebuttal to the dark years of 2011 and 2012, when real estate associations statewide lost members every month — a byproduct of the housing market slump. Starcher is happy to see the hallways of the office buzzing again with Realtors taking tests and signing membership forms.

“It's a big confidence builder,” Starcher tells Coffee Talk. “It's showing that people really believe in the market.”

Data backs up that belief. For example: Sarasota County closed 1,201 property transactions in March, close to the all-time one-month sales figure record of 1,228, set April 2004.
In addition, the number of closed property transactions in Sarasota County increased in March by 14.3% over March 2014 and 43.5% over February, when there was 837 closings.
Closed transactions in Manatee County rose 20.1% in March over March 2014, from 666 to 800 closings. The figure rose 34.9% from February, when there were 593 closings.