Realtors rolled out a catchy marketing campaign to convince people it was “Time2Buy,” but customers weren’t buying it. Homes and condos piled up as economists predicted it will take two or more years to absorb the inventory. Large condo-based projects such as the high-visibility Grande Sarasotan at U.S. 41 and Gulfstream and Bradenton’s SevenShores on the northwest tip of Perico Island fell off the tracks; so did a number of builders, subcontractors and mortgage lenders. Risky loans put at least one local bank in trouble.

In early summer, just as the market appeared to be inching up, the subprime mortgage crisis hit, and many homeowners found themselves upside down. Insurance and tax relief passed in Tallahassee didn’t seem to relieve anyone.

And as if we weren’t miserable enough, London’s Financial Times pointed to Sarasota as the epicenter of an international financial meltdown caused by subprime mortgages, investor “vultures” circled and even bankers started whispering “recession.”

Those were the headlines, anyway.

Recapping this year’s top business stories would be a doom-and-gloom exercise had we not gone beyond the headlines. Long-time efforts by economic development leaders to diversify our economy started paying dividends with a number of high-tech industries opening, including Enza Zaden Research in Manatee and Rapid Pathogen Screening, a Sarasota ocular device maker. And manufacturers outside the building trade, Tervis Tumbler and Sun Hydraulics among them, added sales and workers.

While we wallowed in real estate misery, Money magazine named Sarasota-Bradenton as the top place to retire young, which makes sense when you consider that we’re also the second best place in the country to start a small business, according to Bizjournal.

Florida reclaimed its top tourist destination title from California, and Sarasota County opened a film office to snag commercial and movie work. Plans for a Waldorf-Astoria and other new hotels were announced, and Sarasota Bradenton International Airport landed new airlines and routes to bring more visitors.

Yes, it’s been a roller-coaster year. We’ve learned a hard, but old, lesson: What goes up quickly comes down just as fast. Even the most cynical prognosticators say things will level out. They always do. For all the ups and downs, this stretch of Florida still has sunshine, beaches and boatloads of baby boomers headed our way.

RESIDENTIAL REAL ESTATE MELTDOWN

There’s no way to sugar-coat the real estate market in 2007. Sales were in a slump when the ball dropped in Times Square, but by spring the market was holding steady in Sarasota—and home sales actually rose by June. By late summer, though, about 8,000 single family homes were listed in the MLS, 8 percent more than a year ago. The condo inventory was up about 19 percent, to 4,808. We had too many properties and not enough buyers, and speculators had long left the market. Relief wasn’t going to come as quickly as predicted.

By fall, Sarasota-Bradenton’s median home price was $277,700, about 12 percent lower than 2006. (Next to Punta Gorda’s 21 percent drop, Sarasota had the steepest decline in Florida, more than double the state average. (It’s worth remembering, though, that these prices were still higher than before the boom—the median Sarasota sales price was $242,900 in 2004.)

Residential construction came to a standstill, especially in ground-zero markets such as North Port, where housing permits dropped 89 percent. Manatee County’s single-family building permits declined 57 percent, and the permitting department fell $2 million in the hole and started shedding workers.

But plans for some major projects with residential components continued to progress. Despite slow sales, Pineapple Square in downtown Sarasota continued to seek residents and tenants, and Sarasota Quay came tumbling down to make way for Sarasota Bayside, Irishman Patrick Kelly’s enormous mixed-use project. Several months later, however, nothing had risen to take the Quay’s place.

National as well as local builders were hit hard. Bonita Springs-based WCI Communities shed 600 positions last year and was the target of an unsuccessful takeover by Carl Icahn. Centex Homes laid off about 150 workers in Sarasota-Manatee, Miami-based Lennar laid off about 200 workers in Southwest Florida and Levitt & Sons called for a complete Florida shutdown.

“Vulture investor” entered the local lexicon. One made offers to builders to buy hundreds of unsold new properties at 30 percent off going prices, which real estate professionals guesstimated would take about 10 percent of the inventory off the market. Those deals are in the “wait and see” department as we wind up 2007.