Sarasota & Charlotte Listings Plummet

Added: 2026-05-12

[00:00:00]Welcome back, friends. What is this behind me? What would you call this that I'm standing out here in front of in Port Charlotte today? The dirt looks like it's been there for a while.

[00:00:12]Would you call it an under construction house?

[00:00:15]Would you call it an abandoned house? I don't know. I don't know. Hard to tell on that one. Some of them not so hard to tell. We've got some material sitting here, so who knows?

[00:00:26]But if you were to go by what some other Southwest Florida content creators are saying, you would call that a mirage.

[00:00:36]That's a lie. It's not happening. It's something something Ben Grio fabricates in his head. He goes to sleep at night and he makes these half-built homes appear across Southwest Florida and the way he presents them is misleading.

[00:00:49]I'm a liar again. Again, I'm a liar, guys. H.

[00:00:54]So, I wasn't going to address this because personally and professionally, I don't feel like I should bolster myself up by tearing anybody else down. Now, obviously, that's not the way some people feel. I like to lift people up. I like to educate, enlighten, and help the best I can within my capabilities. I found that that works pretty good in life karma wise. But I get it.

[00:01:23]Some people don't want to take that route. So, a lot of you guys have been leaving comments, sending emails, um, you know, letting me know that my name's getting thrown around on some channels.

[00:01:34]I get it. And I I we knew this. I I've said this before. I I'm not everybody's favorite around here, specifically agents. Um, it just is not the way I would handle it personally, and I felt it was time to address it. I respect anybody who gets on camera or creates content. I mean, it's not easy to do this, guys. It's not easy to edit. It's not easy to walk around and everybody look at you like you're a weirdo with a camera and guys try to fight you and all this stuff. Um, I respect anybody that does this, but like I said, you have to understand the context of things and where everyone's coming from.

[00:02:16]And from what I've seen, attacking people seems to be the trend right now, which I'm I'm sad about because I I just I just don't like doing that. Um once provoked, however, I will make a few points. Um I've watched a couple of these things. I've left a few comments on the videos that you guys pointed out to me, and thank you for defending me. uh my comments were deleted and you know I found that strange but when I watch what's being said it always goes back to the same thing guys I go on Zillow I type in their name and I see zero zero sorry I didn't mean to put that one up there zero I try to do a hold on this for sales this year in Southwest Florida for some three or four in the last 12 months. And then after attacking other professionals in the industry, they then beg you to work with them and question why you aren't.

[00:03:28]I think there's your answer.

[00:03:30]I think there's your answer. I mean, uh, I did see some comments on other videos. Oh, Ben Grio's out here trashing the real estate market and then begs you to work with him. Guys, I've never asked anybody on this channel to work with me.

[00:03:43]I I I never will. I I do this channel for a hobby. I love real estate. I'm obsessed with data. I enjoy walking and talking. So, no, I've never asked anybody to to work with me and I won't. That's not what the point of my channel is. If you call me for real estate because of it, great.

[00:04:05]Great. But I don't know. It's a bad look. Again, I didn't even want to bring it up, but it's just been happening more and more and more and more. And I'm being framed in a way that I'm making this stuff up.

[00:04:20]Like, I'm just And I I'm like, what else could I I show the data. I pull the freaking listings on Zillow. What more could I What more could I substantiate?

[00:04:30]And I appreciate everybody in the comments who also, you know, comes in and says, "Hey, we're seeing this, too."

[00:04:36]Um, so yeah, I don't know. It's kind of gross.

[00:04:41]Not the way I would conduct business.

[00:04:44]And uh, the big thing a lot of them tout is, you know, we watch so much of this content. We we're all over this just like you guys. We're all over this. I'm going to be 100% transparent with you guys. I don't watch any YouTube content, especially on Southwest Florida. I don't I just I don't if I watch YouTube content, I'm probably watching some like retrospective on a 1998 PlayStation game. That's just my nerdage there. I Oh, the Resident Evil story line in three hours. I'll watch the whole thing.

[00:05:13]Let's go. That's that's just how I handle it. Um and and you know, that's very limited in and of itself. So, if you have all this time to consume all this content and to attack other creators, um, are you selling anything?

[00:05:33]You know, I am. I'm I don't have time to sit here and watch everybody's on opinion on YouTube for 12 hours a day because I'm selling houses, guys. That's there's no there's no nice way to put that out there. But that's where I'm also like, why do you even realize what you're saying? you even realize what you're saying? You're telling everyone you have all this time to sit around and watch all these YouTube clips and you're the authority. Okay, again, pull the sales numbers. All right, enough of being petty. Let's get into some numbers here. Now, last video that I did was all about highly educated buyers and how it's causing an issue in the real estate industry because agents don't know how to deal with this. They don't know how to deal with people who aren't leaning on them for everything or trusting everything they say or do. So much so that they had to put guidelines out on how to handle these people. I will preface this guys. While this is a growing trend, it is not the norm.

[00:06:29]Unfortunately, I would prefer it to be, but there are still many, many, many buyers uh delv products, not just not just housing, that just don't they don't want to do they don't want to do the due diligence. Sign and drive. Tell me what I got to do. I'll ink the paper. I want to get out of here. And unfortunately, that's how you get in bad situations that you can't course correct once you've purchased the home. So, it's not the predominant buyer, but it is a growing group enough so that they had to put industry guidelines out. And like I said, I think it's great. People want to be educated. So, let's talk Charlotte County closing its strongest sales month for April since 2021 for single family homes. This is going to be from the stellar MLS, guys. I pulled this off from the MLS. It'll differ differ from the Florida Realtor numbers a little bit, but I can pull the stellar MLS numbers right now at the beginning of May, whereas I have to wait till the end of May to get the Florida Realtors, and they kind of differ ever so slightly. Sarasota actually did the same. They pulled their highest April off. 913 closed sales for single family homes. It's actually the highest month this year. And that makes sense because we have seen an enormous uptick in pending sales going back to the fall. So, if pending sales go up, and pending sales, guys, is just homes going under contract. If more homes get accepted offers on them, we're going to have subsequent stronger closing months.

[00:08:01]And that's what we're seeing here. So, the momentum, at least for now, continued through April pretty strong. I think it's going to pull through May as well. And we we started seeing this a while back. So, we had the great D-listers in the fall as well. And now we're seeing a surge in sales that has resulted in Sarasota's total listing inventory dropping almost 30% since last year. They're down to 3,900 homes. They had over 5,400 last year, guys. That's that's a big shift. And we're seeing this in pretty much all the Southwest region, almost all the counties right now.

[00:08:43]It's uh it's it's really something to see this kind of pullback. I think a big portion of it is people are tired of waiting, but we also didn't have a hurricane. No hurricane. Here you go.

[00:08:56]You know, we had three of the worst hurricanes in three years on top of a market correction, on top of an oversaturation of the rental market, on top of investors pulling out. It was just it was chaos here. So, I don't think we're back to normal by any means, but it's a little more stable than it has been. Um, that's good news or bad news depending on who you are, unfortunately. So, according to the stellar MLS, again, Sarasota had seven months of inventory when we started the season in January. That's a pretty firm buyers market. Anything really over six, 5.5 is considered to favor buyers. They are now down to four. They are technically back in a sellers market.

[00:09:36]And someone commented when I said that about Venice the other day that I believe they're in a sellers market there. Like that's a strange thing to say, but based on inventory and buying patterns, that's what we're seeing.

[00:09:47]Charlotte County still at 6 months of inventory, so it's balanced, favoring, still favoring buyers a little more, but it was nine months of inventory in January. And the year before it was way higher than that. So, interesting shifts going on here.

[00:10:05]And again, I do believe a lot of it is no storm, dude. We just did not get a hurricane. So, that's going to influence buyer activity. That's going to influence listing activity, but things seem to start being at an equilibrium in some points. Uh, I don't know if it's going to continue through the summer. I'm starting to think it's going to. I'm leaning towards that way, but like I said, in the fall, I always want to see the numbers. I I I got to basically call this month by month. I I don't like making far out predictions. Even July to me is far out because who knows what could happen. But I think based on the pattern I'm seeing now of people selling in other states, which is it's prime selling season now.

[00:10:45]We're still going to see a decent push in of buyers and we're just going to continue to see listings drop. So, unfortunately, a conversation I'm having a lot lately, which which I never used to have uh with people is, hey, you know, Ben, I was I have like had 10 houses saved, eight of them sold. I'm like, I I know. I know. Um, even people who have bought, you know, they're going back and looking at everything we were looking at. They're like, "Everything we tooured went pending or sold for the most part. About 20% of things people will pick out seem to be languishing."

[00:11:17]But yeah, it's just uh I mean, it's a super super strong sales season, especially after the the catastrophe of the previous three years. You know, something I want to briefly touch on too, guys, I used to bring this up regularly. I assume people know this, but it's a good refresher every now and then, especially since we're talking about educated buyers. Um, at this point in the internet, the sellers and the buyers, they know everything about each other. They definitely found your social media. They know where your kids go to college. They know how much you paid for the house at at the very least. They know what your mortgage most likely is.

[00:11:53]Like, there's so much info out there and everyone will take their chance to get it. So, be cognizant of that because I saw a story recently and I'm glad that this person got caught where a buyer was under contract for a house and they went to the seller's Facebook page after the inspection period had ended and saw that the seller had just done a massive water mold remediation.

[00:12:21]Didn't disclose that and the buyer didn't find it. So, it's a pretty sweet fountain. By the way, just going to show you guys that fountain real quick.

[00:12:32]Now what?

[00:12:34]Now you got a failure to disclose situation. What kind of lawsuit would that be? I'm not a lawyer. I don't know.

[00:12:40]But think of that, guys. You know, how could you how could you not disclose that but have the whole remediation project on your Facebook? Come on. We got some solars.

[00:12:56]I mean, if it's listed, we might as well look at it. Everybody's yelling at me.

[00:12:59]Stop walking past $2 million houses. I show plenty of 300 400. I'm going to bet that's in the range, the 300 400 range.

[00:13:05]Let's take a look. Okay, here you go.

[00:13:07]Bang. 326. I was right on the money.

[00:13:09]People were saying, "Oh, you don't show any $300,000 homes on your channel." I I do all the time. I go past new builds that are 300400,000, but whatever. This house, I was pretty close. This is a 32, 1290 ft. It's actually a little smaller than I thought it'd be from the street.

[00:13:24]So, I I thought this was going to come in around 350 and be a little bit bigger. Solar panels. We're going to look into that as well. Uh, but this is a pool home built in 98, 253 a square foot. That's a little steep in my opinion, but let's see what the history is here. 14 days on Zillow. Brand new.

[00:13:42]And uh Oh, this lady listed my neighbor's house and sold it for a boatload of money. So, shout outs to Miss Long because I told him that that was not going to sell and it did and uh actually it gave me a little equity boost. So, I'm not crying about it, but uh good for her. Good for her. So, we got the solar on here. Any uh solar system gives the added benefit of low electric bill and will be paid off at time of closing. Hallelujah. Nice. Nice.

[00:14:08]That's what you want to see. You want to see this in the listing explained exactly what's going to go on. Just get it out of the way. I'd almost put this up a little higher just so people see that. But hey, that's me. I don't know.

[00:14:20]Let's take a look at the actual property. Again, built in ' 89. Uh, that pool is I guess that's a concrete pool. If that's an 89 pool, that's in pretty good shape, assuming it's been resurfaced and the tile's been redone. But even the pad out here, the pad looks pretty good.

[00:14:36]What's uh got a nice little I guess covered entryway, screened in entryway when you come in. These are very popular in the 80s homes around this area, Port Charlotte. Um, okay. So, it's a little darker in here. Uh, tones.

[00:14:51]Obviously, not an 80s house. This looks like this was probably remodeled right around 2005, but these posts might be from the 80s. That and I, you know what?

[00:14:59]I'd almost hate to rip them out. Like, that's pretty cool. As far as the size of the home goes, this looks pretty big.

[00:15:05]This is a nice open area here. I think that shows very well. People are probably going to want to come in, change the flooring. Uh, I don't know if there's like a transition mess up going on here, but different tile into that room.

[00:15:17]But honestly, that actually looks pretty big for 1300 square feet. Yeah, this is all 80s, man. Little wine holders, the wood posts. Ah, I'll never Pretty soon you won't see this stuff anymore.

[00:15:28]They've got the primary here. They've got their own new tile in there. Yeah, there's some kind of strange transition going on there. It might just be the angle. Uh, nice view of the pool right from your bed. That's kind of cool. The primary bath looks like it's been updated. Also serves as your pool bath.

[00:15:43]There's a door out right there. A lot of uh I don't know, a lot of paint, coaul.

[00:15:48]I don't know what's going on there.

[00:15:50]That's kind of stuff that catches my eye when I'm going through. So, you get a little covered seating area out here, too, which is nice. Um the sheds a little close, but that you're going to find that a lot in these 80s, 90s, even early 2000s homes. For some reason, sometimes the shed was very, very close to the house or the pool. You can see right here there's not a lot of space, but it's cool that you get a covered area. And uh this deck looks like it's in great shape.

[00:16:15]I don't know. The the design is a little bit all over the place. That's may maybe it's repairs. I don't know.

[00:16:23]But yeah, so you've got cosmetic work here. Clearly there's there's stuff that people are going to want to do. Uh it's just it's just it's unavoidable. It's not me. It's not my decision to make, but it's unavoidable. This is a very weird pattern.

[00:16:39]Why are these bricks all these different colors? That's so strange because there doesn't seem to be any cohesiveness here. Is this all repairs? I mean, they're clean, but why so many different I don't understand. Maybe you can see it from the sky.

[00:16:55]Yeah, I don't know. Even on the drone shot, I can't make I can't make sense of that.

[00:17:00]Maybe I'm missing it. Anyway, they're at 3:25. I feel like they could have got crazy and tried to go for 350. Most people in this situation would have uh Zillow.

[00:17:12]So Zillow thinks even at the peak, the peak this thing wasn't worth 350 and now right before they listed it, they felt it was actually around 250. So comes on at 326 currently. So they haven't listed it recently. They picked it up in 15 for $108,000.

[00:17:30]Wow. Wow. And now here we are at 326.

[00:17:35]So, what do you guys think of this house? Let me know in the comments. I've heard of lion statues. I've seen lions.

[00:17:40]I've not seen German Shepherd statues out there.

[00:17:45]So, let me know what you guys think of that place. Um, so yeah. I don't know. I felt like that one was a little whiny today at the beginning. I'm going to be honest with you, but I just wanted to get it out there because it's just nonstop at this point. And um just cut it out, man. Go about your life. Like who? Stop it. Oh my god. My god. Like, who has the time? And real quick, guys, you can see I'm back at the house I started the video on. Just wanted to give everybody a better look at it. Make your own assumptions. This one is really hard to tell, but when the yard is overgrown like this, I mean, clearly nothing's been coming through here for a while. So, it's a I don't know. What do you guys think? Do you think this one gets finished at the end of the day?

[00:18:31]It's pretty far along. I'd assume probably. I mean, if you look down the right side here, the dirt looks disturbed. I don't know if it's the rain because there's no gutters, but I don't know. I also forgot to film an outro for this video. So, if you like this video, guys, give me a like, share, subscribe, and I'll see you next time.