Sarasota, Florida
Sarasota (SRQ) is all about the walkable downtown, but frankly renting year-round or buying a home in downtown Sarasota is not in the cards for the average person. My wife and I lived on a boat in Marina Jack for four years, before finding an affordable downtown condo (#107) to renovate. It came out so nice, we bought a second unit (#208) as an investment and renovated that, too.
With an average price for a 2-bedroom, 2-bath condo in downtown SRQ ranges from $750k to $950k finding something in the three-hundred thousands is not easy. The corresponding long-term rents are very high too as a small two-bedroom condo in the city rents for $4,000 to $5,000 per week in the season.
Our two Mentone Court Downtown Condos
Are For Rent (or Sale)
We’ll describe them in detail
on this website
We (Jerry and Gail) lived on a boat for four years in MarinaJack before we finally found and renovated two small condos (the perfect pied-à-terre) for under $400,000 each. With their Walkability scores of 92, it doesn’t get much more downtown unless you’ve got $800,000+ to spend.
In addition to advice on renting, we’ll describe buying a condo (like ours) in light of issues like flood insurance, the new Milestone Inspection laws, hurricane evacuation requirements, etc. – answering all your questions.
Why Sarasota? Well a huge benefit for Snow Birds is that the center of Sarasota is just a 12-minute Uber ride from its airport (SRQ). Note SRQ is the fastest growing airport in the country, making it a hub (e.g., Breeze airline) for direct flights from and to anywhere.
Once we land in SRQ we Uber to the condo in a few minutes for $15–20 for both of us! Our furnished condo serves as an in-town pied-à-terre meaning we carry no luggage – we just fly down from the Boston area for weekend escapes or we can spend the entire winter season flying back-and-forth whenever we need to.
Everyone who visits Sarasota wants to return and stay or live – until they get sticker shock at the prices. Our story may help you also live in this vibrant, European-like city filled with sidewalk bistros where everyone dines outdoors and you can walk to everything. Let’s explore why the downtown is so remarkable in the next section.
