The Commercial Real Estate Alpha Site

(According to the real estate website Redfin, the median sale price in the Sarasota housing market is $529,900, up 10.4% from a year ago.)

simplydwell-homes-built-7-houses-on-a-sarasota-property-across-from-booker-high-school-that-had-fallen-into-disrepair.-photo-by-lori-sax

The Neal Communities-associated builder says Sarasota made it so difficult to build a small, low-priced community that it’s hesitant to tackle similar projects elsewhere.

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Key takeaway: SimplyDwell Homes, which builds attainable homes, bought a rundown property in Sarasota with plans to transform it into a small, inexpensive community for underserved buyers.

Core challenge: The builder says it ran into problems with the city of Sarasota’s bureaucracy which made it difficult to keep costs down and complicated the project.

What’s next: SimplyDwell president Jag Rupnarain says given the company’s experience, it might not undertake a project like the one in Sarasota again.

SimplyDwell Homes, a Lakewood Ranch homebuilder owned by Neal Communities, has completed a seven-house project on a lot once occupied by abandoned homes in Sarasota.

The project was meant to be a new step for the company, taking dilapidated properties in urban markets and building lower priced houses for entry-level buyers. The idea was that it would provide attainable, newly constructed houses for residents, mostly renters and first-time home buyers that were affordable.

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