Sarasota Realtor
A Sarasota Realtor who publishes the numbers first
Michael Dailey is a REALTOR with Coldwell Banker Realty who grew up in Sarasota and represents buyers and sellers across the city and its barrier islands. The practice is built around one distinction that catches most Sarasota buyers out: a condominium fee and a homeowners association fee are not the same kind of number, and this site publishes both separately rather than blending them into one misleading median.
Michael Dailey, REALTOR® · Sales Associate, Coldwell Banker Realty. Florida licence SL3619388. Office at 8334 Market St, Lakewood Ranch, FL 34202.
Who you would be working with
I grew up in Sarasota and I served eight years in the U.S. Army. I am a REALTOR® with Coldwell Banker Realty, licence SL3619388, and I work across Manatee and Sarasota counties from the office on Market Street in Lakewood Ranch.
The part that matters more than the biography: this site publishes the research rather than promising it. The HOA and district assessments, the flood designations and the county-sourced community facts are all up in public, for free, with their sources named, before anyone contacts me. You can check my work on Sarasota before you decide whether to call, which is roughly the opposite of how this industry usually introduces itself.
When you do call, you get me. I am one member of a team at Coldwell Banker Realty, and the promise is not that I work alone, it is that your call comes to me and I am the one who picks it up.
8 years
U.S. Army, before real estate
5.0★
Across 41 Google reviews
President’s Circle
Coldwell Banker International award
Sarasota by the numbers I publish
Every figure below is counted from the fee data on this site, not quoted from a listing. It updates when that data is reviewed, so this page and the sarasota fee table cannot disagree with each other.
139
Sarasota communities with their own page here
97
With published HOA and district estimates
$4,368
Median annual carrying cost, houses
$21,360
Median annual carrying cost, condominiums
93 of 97
Tracked communities with no district assessment
40 of 97
Wholly or partly in FEMA flood zone AE
HOA and district figures are estimates, annualised, and subject to change; flood designation is assigned parcel by parcel and must be verified for a specific address. Nothing here replaces the non-ad valorem section of the actual tax bill, which is what I pull before a client writes an offer.
What is actually different about buying in Sarasota
Local knowledge is the most overused phrase in this business, so here is the specific version: three things about this market that decide money, and that an agent working it from forty miles away will not raise with you.
01
A condo fee and a house fee are not comparable
Measured together, Sarasota looks roughly twice as expensive to own as Lakewood Ranch. That is a product-mix artefact, not a fact about Sarasota. Most of the tracked communities here are downtown and bayfront condominiums whose fee buys the building: master insurance, the roof and exterior, elevators, staff and structural reserves. Split out, the median Sarasota house actually carries LESS than the median Lakewood Ranch home. Anyone who quotes you one blended figure for Sarasota is telling you something untrue.
02
Downtown is a building-by-building market, and buildings here span sixty years
The earliest tracked building here was completed in 1962, and the newest in the last couple of years. Florida now requires milestone inspections and a funded structural integrity reserve study on buildings three storeys and taller, and the option to vote reserves down has been removed. On a building of that age the reserve position decides your real cost more than the view does, which is why I read the budget, the financial statements and the reserve study before a client writes an offer.
03
Almost nothing in Sarasota carries a CDD, and a lot of it floods
Nearly every tracked Sarasota community carries no district assessment at all, which is a genuine structural advantage over the newer master plans inland. The cost that shows up instead is flood: roughly four in ten tracked communities sit in FEMA zone AE, where a lender writing a federally backed mortgage will require flood insurance. Zone is assigned parcel by parcel, never by neighbourhood.
Check my work before you call
None of this is gated and none of it asks for your email. It is the research I would do for you anyway, published so you can judge it first.
Sarasota HOA & CDD fees
Houses and condominiums in two separate tables, never one blended average
The Sarasota community guide
Every community and building, with county-sourced unit counts and build years
Community directory
One page per community and building
Owner resources
County appraiser, homestead deadline, TRIM notices and FEMA flood lookup
Buying or selling in Sarasota?
Tell me the address, the community or just the question. If it is a specific property I will pull the district assessment, the flood designation and the association's own documents before we talk, so the first conversation is about the numbers rather than about me.
Or call or text (941) 350-0224.
Prefer to keep reading first? The Sarasota community guide is the longest thing I have written about Sarasota, and it is free.
Common Questions
Working with a Sarasota agent
Why are Sarasota condo fees so much higher than mainland HOA fees?
Because the fee is buying different things. A single-family association maintains shared landscaping and amenities while you insure and maintain your own roof, walls and exterior. A condominium association insures and maintains the entire structure on every owner’s behalf, including the master policy, the roof and exterior, elevators, staff, structural reserves and often water and sewer. Compare a Sarasota condominium against other condominiums and a Sarasota house against other houses. Comparing one against the other tells you nothing useful.
What should I check before buying a condo in downtown Sarasota?
Three documents, and none of them is the listing. The association’s current operating budget, the most recent financial statements so you can see the reserve balance, and the structural integrity reserve study that Florida now requires. The gap between what the study calls for and what the budget actually funds is your future special assessment. On an older building, ask for the milestone inspection report and twelve months of board minutes as well, because assessments are discussed before they are levied.
Is Sarasota in a flood zone?
Much of it. Roughly four in ten of the Sarasota communities tracked on this site sit in FEMA zone AE, a special flood hazard area where a lender writing a federally backed mortgage will require flood insurance. Designation is assigned parcel by parcel rather than by neighbourhood, so it has to be checked for the exact address on FEMA’s Flood Map Service Center. Note also that your evacuation zone is a separate thing, set by the county, and a home can sit outside every FEMA flood zone and still be in evacuation zone A.
The other markets I work
Each one has its own page, because the thing a buyer needs explained is genuinely different in each.