Real Estate Reports - Longboat Key

+ Former Wagner agents join Michael Saunders
Cathy Meldahl, former branch manager at Wagner Realty’s Longboat Key office, has joined Michael Saunders & Co. as a sales associate. Former Wagner agents Bill Greene, Karen Ankerstar, Jack McCormick, Tama Traberman, Susan Smith and Dee Dee Burke have also joined Michael Saunders.
Meldahl, Greene, Ankerstar, McCormick and Traberman will work in the mid-Key office. Smith will work in either the mid-Key office or St. Armands Circle office. Burke will work out of the St. Armands Circle office.

Meldahl said that her move will allow her to give up management duties in order to focus on listing and selling properties.

“Michael Saunders & Co. was a good fit for me,” Meldahl said. “There’s the mid-Key location and the tools that (the company) has to offer buyers and sellers. It’s unbelievable the resources we have at our fingertips.”

Meldahl is originally from Clarksdale, Miss., and moved to Longboat Key in 1973, after two weeks of vacationing on the island. She and her husband, Craig, lived at and managed the former Golden Beach, now Wicker Inn.

Meldahl entered the real-estate business in 1978 as a property/rental manager and earned her Florida real-estate salesman license, and then her broker’s license, in 1983. She has earned many designations during her career, the most recent of which were the Senior Real Estate Specialist (SRES), Resort and Second-Home Property Specialist (RSPS) and Short Sales & Foreclosure Resource (SSFR) designations.
She served as branch manager of Wagner Realty’s Longboat Key office for eight years.

Meldahl is an active member of the Longbeach Village Association, Longboat Key Historical Society, Longboat Key Garden Club and Longboat Key Center for the Arts, a Division of Ringling College of Art and Design.

+ Bayer, Ackerman release new luxury market analysis
Michael Bayer and Barbara Ackerman, of Coldwell Banker Previews Longboat Key, recently released the “2006-2009 Luxury Market Report Analysis,” which summarizes trends and future forecasts for single-family homes and condominiums priced at $1 million and up for Longboat, Lido, St. Armands, Bird, Siesta and Casey keys. The report breaks down data into eight six-month periods, beginning January through June 2006, and ending in July through December 2009. The data included sales through Dec. 11, 2009.

The report found that the median sale price for both single-family homes and condominiums in the luxury market hit bottom during the first six months of 2009, coinciding with the stock-market crash of 2008. The report forecasted that condominium sales for the second half of 2009 would exceed those for the first half.

According to the analysis, luxury buyers in the keys market are getting more value per square foot than in the past. The median high was $602 per square foot in the second half of 2006, compared to the median low of $432 per square foot in the first half of 2009 for single-family homes. The median high was $704 per square foot in the first half of 2007, compared to the median low of $525 per square foot in the second half to date of 2009.

To read the full report, go to FloridaMoves.com.

Contact Robin Hartill at [email protected].