Six weeks into an ambitious - and expensive - advertising campaign designed to get fence-sitters to plunk over down payments and actually buy homes, the Sarasota Association of Realtors is seeing some positive results. Or are last three months of statistical increases in sales and offers, not to mention the reduction in inventory, just a cyclical fact in a market that eventually would bounce back anyway?What a year for Network Liquidators. Revenue grew 80%. The company opened a London office. The chief financial officer left. Another executive was promoted. The company acquired another and it obtained $12.86 million in capital.And to top it all, the company, founded in 2001, is moving for the fifth time in five years.In a deal that exudes good timing, Michigan-based Burton-Katzman Development Co. bought Sarasota Commercial Management Inc., a property management and real estate firm with about 25 properties under leases totaling 500,000 square feet. Neither side disclosed the sale price for the deal, announced Feb. 15. At 24, Ryan Sampson, who works with land broker Bill Eshenbaugh, known as Tampa's Dirt Dog, might just be the youngest person ever to become an Accredited Land Consultant.Then again, he might not be.Politicians, lobbyists and parents of Florida State University college students can cheer new nonstop air service to Tallahassee from Naples.
