Premier Properties of Southwest Florida, Naples' leading luxury real estate firm, plans to open its first office in downtown Sarasota this month, during a time when you can hear a pin drop in the real estate market. January through August sales fell 35.8 percent from a year ago, prices increased only .03 percent in that last 12 months, and some residential real estate agents are sprucing up their resumes in search of other opportunities.

Although Premier executives have been planning the Sarasota expansion for more than a year, the business community is abuzz, wondering about their timing. Is it smart to make a splash in a new market-one with formidable competitors-during a real estate slowdown?

"It's a great time to be expanding," insists Tom Bringardner, general manager of Premier Properties in Naples. "We have the luxury of having not only the financial resources, but the management resources and the intellectual resources to take advantage of little blips in the marketplace."

That might sound overly optimistic to anyone who's making a living from real estate, but Bringardner sees the current slowdown as a "very common, very predictable pattern of imperfection in the market." Buyers who have been interested in moving to Southwest Florida aren't choosing to go elsewhere; if anything, they're just postponing a decision, he says. "My gosh, this doesn't mean that people suddenly don't like to walk on the beach in Southwest Florida and that it's not going to get cold in Chicago or in the Hamptons during the wintertime. There are an awful lot of people who want to come down here," he says.

Steve Bailey, who surprised the local real estate community when he jumped from Michael Saunders & Company-where he had been for three years, most recently serving as executive vice president of real estate services-to helm Premier's new office at Plaza at Five Points, is banking on those future buyers. "It certainly was a risk to leave an established entity, but I really consider it a minimal risk because of the history of the company and the fact that Premier has the business model," he says. "This is the ideal time for a company that has staying power and resources to enter a new market area."

Premier Properties, established in 1982, is a division of The Lutgert Companies, a group of private companies in the residential and commercial real estate development and brokerage services, founded by Raymond Lutgert in 1964. Lutgert also handles developer consultation, sales and marketing, personal and commercial insurance, residential mortgage and title industries. In the last 40 years, The Lutgert Companies has not only grown and evolved with Naples, but has taken a lead in how the area has developed. "I think they've had a significant positive impact on the overall development of Naples," says Paul Marinelli, president of the Barron Collier Co.

"They really set a standard in quality, amenities and in terms of marketing Southwest Florida as a destination for people to come to," says David Ellis, executive vice president of the Collier Building Industry Association.

In 2005, Premier generated more than $2 billion in annual sales, from homes in private golf course communities to oceanfront condos and single-family homes to properties in Old Naples. It has 225 licensed sales agents at 13 locations in Naples, Marco Island and Bonita Springs. (Michael Saunders & Company, another rival in the luxury market, has 450 associates in 16 locations and generated $3.1 billion in 2005 sales.)

As Bailey was working in August to hire sales agents-the plan calls for an initial 12 to 15 in the Five Points office-he found the slowdown working to his advantage. The soft market conditions have made agents consider alternatives. He hasn't had to make too many outgoing recruiting calls because a number of agents are contacting him.

"People are disenchanted, they're frustrated," says Bailey, vice president and Sarasota regional manager. "Their productivity is not what it was the past five years. What that does is cause people to really stop and analyze their current situation."

Even before opening its doors, Premier, which expects to be working with properties priced at $1 million and up, started negotiating for additional office space and already plans to increase its sales force, which Bringardner says includes agents from Collier as well as newcomers to the company. "We're looking at an opportunity to grow even more within Sarasota not even having opened our doors," he told Sarasota-Manatee BUSINESS while the initial location was under construction.

THE NAPLES-SARASOTA CONNECTION

In determining how and when to expand, Premier executives considered factors such as the distance between the Naples and Sarasota markets, competitors and the potential client base. "We've been looking at Sarasota for some time, more than a year, talking about opportunities that might exist there," Bringardner says. "We like Sarasota a lot. Similarities are made on a regular basis in Sarasota about it being like Naples."