Speculating in Sarasota

Recent commentary on Sarasota's real estate market:

From Harold Bubil's Blog (SHT):
They call them flippers, flippers ...
... And faster than lightning, they are dumping their condo units into the market. That's how longtime Sarasota Realtor Ron Moxom explains the huge increase of condominiums listed for sale in the Sarasota MLS:

"A large factor in the increase of condo listings is the substantial number of apartment conversions that were heavily purchased by 'flippers.' Apartment conversions, in my opinion, have created a new breed of investor -- one not nearly as financially stable as our more stable, 'higher end' investor," he writes in response to my [Bubil's]blog item "How long to sell?"

As apartments, the units never showed up in the MLS stats before," he continues. "Now, I would suspect that there are hundreds of them listed for sale in MLS."

From Michael Braga's Blog (SHT):
Speculating on condos risky, Realtor says...
Chad Roffers, president of Sky Sotheby’s Realty, says he’d rather deal with end-users than speculators when it comes to high-end condominium. “It’s risky to be buying and selling condos as investments,” he said.

Roffers pointed out that most of the buyers of the Ritz-Carlton and Tower Residences condo units were speculators. “Those investments didn’t perform that well,” Roffers said. “Many investors still own them.”