$12 million waterfront house on Longboat Key listed at height of summer in Sarasota
A half-acre waterfront property on Longboat Key has entered the Sarasota area luxury market at $12 million in the middle of August as Realtors report a return to normal after two crazy years of fast-paced and record breaking sales.
The property at 5005 Gulf of Mexico Drive, Unit 3, last sold in November 2020 for $7.2 million, to William and Patricia Werzyn of Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania.
The Werzyns bought the property after the previous owner built the 4,624-square-foot beach resort in June 2020, according to building permits. The property has five bedrooms and 5.5 baths.
"This stunning, contemporary five-bedroom home ideally represents the waterfront luxury living lifestyle that Longboat Key is best known for," marketing material for the property reads.
Roger Pettingell, a luxury waterfront specialist with Coldwell Banker Realty, listed the property this week knowing that Sarasota is being baked by unrelenting heat, with many of the property's potential buyers far from their second homes as the hot weather will continue for weeks.
Pettingell said that was something he thought about when planning the strategy to sell this property.
"It's arguable what you do. Do you wait for the time when the most people are here or whether you don't want to miss those people that are coming this time of year looking for something for season," he said of his decision process.
Some properties, he said, you wait, as that will produce the best outcomes for his client.
"But when you get something like this, I mean, you really have to rely on online marketing more than ever because you are going to have to reach the right buyer who is not here," he said.
Pettingell noted the Gulf of Mexico mansion has some significant factors in its favor, despite the summer not being the most opportune time to list.
"It is only a couple years old and it's in perfect condition," he said. "That might be the most amazing thing about it. We don't get a lot of brand new construction that is for sale (on Longboat)."
He said there are some speculative properties under construction, "but they're in the $18 to $20 to $22 million range."
"There are definitely buyers that are looking for high-quality beachfront property at anytime," he said. "I don't feel as much constraint to bring this in the middle of February when we know there are always the most people in Sarasota in February and March."
"We will be doing a lot of internet marketing to get this in front of the right people," he said.
Pettingell said he did feel the market has returned to normal, pointing to slower sales this summer than the previous two, which he noted was fueled by people making decisions based on the pandemic reality the country was experiencing two and three years ago.
"I would say we are exactly where we always are in August, in every other market besides the last two years," he said about the current state of the luxury market. "Now we can look in the rearview mirror and declare the last two years a complete anomaly. They didn't make any sense; we were being flooded by buyers coming out of areas who wanted to be able to live outside and move into these homes with duel offices because everybody was working from home and we had this whole buyer pool that we never saw during summers before. And we don't see them this year."
Even with the return to a more normal summer sales pace with a more normal buyer pool, Pettingell said there are still buyers looking for luxury properties.
"We sold something like $20 million this summer," he said. "That feels like a normal summer for me."
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This article originally appeared on Sarasota Herald-Tribune: See inside: Longboat Key home for sale at $12 million
