A large part of the Sarasota housing market occupies the extremes.
At one end, a third of homes in the Sarasota market are in negative equity (underwater) and the median sales price of a home is $176,360, more than 40 percent lower than it was during the boom, eight years ago.
At the other end are homes like the Bird Key mansion Doug and Cindy Tibbetts built. It’s on the market for a bit more than $8 million — a price that no longer turns heads in Sarasota.