Home prices rise 8.6% in Sarasota - Manatee - April 2015
Home prices jumped 8.6 percent in February over the year before in the Sarasota-Manatee region, outpacing state and national gains. 
Prices increased an even more robust 11.1 percent in Charlotte County, data provider CoreLogic reported Tuesday.
Home prices climbed 6.4 percent throughout Florida in February, the 12th-highest rate in the nation.
The U.S. rate was 5.6 percent, representing three years of consecutive year-over-year increases in home prices.
"Since the second half of 2014, the dwindling supply of affordable inventory has led to stabilization in home-price growth, with a particular uptick in low-end home-price growth over the last few months," said Frank Nothaft, the analyst's chief economist.
"From February 2014 to February 2015, low-end home prices increased by 9.3 percent compared to 4.8 percent for high-end home prices, a gap that is three times the average historical difference," Nothaft said.
CoreLogic projects that price increases nationwide will ease to 5.1 percent over the coming 12 months.
Excluding distressed homes -- properties in some stage of foreclosure, which typically sell at a discount -- prices rose 8.3 percent in Sarasota-Manatee and 13.2 percent in Charlotte.
Florida posted the nation's fifth-highest price increases when excluding distressed sales, at 7.8 percent.
"This is the hottest home-price appreciation prior to the spring selling season in nine years," CoreLogic CEO Anand Nallathambi said.
From January to February, prices rose 2.9 percent in Sarasota-Manatee and 0.9 percent in Charlotte.
Despite its gains, home prices in Florida remain 32.4 percent off their pre-recession peaks, the second-highest gap behind Nevada's 35.4 percent. States with the highest over-the-year home-price appreciation were Colorado, at 9.8 percent; South Carolina, at 9.3 percent; Michigan and Texas, at 8.5 percent; and Wyoming, at 8.4 percent. Sarasota Herald Tribune 4/8/2015
