Location, Location, Location

Most Sunday mornings, along with a whole lot of other hikers and bikers, my husband and I stroll across the Ringling Causeway. From our vantage point high above Sarasota Bay, we look west and see the gleaming condominiums stretching up Longboat Key and the elegant single-family neighborhoods of Bird Key, St. Armands Circle, Lido Key and south to Siesta Key. We turn east and see the high-rises of downtown Sarasota laid before us. It's a view I never tire of.

There's water, water everywhere in our beautiful three-county region, as well as beaches so sugar-white they've been included in international Best Sand contests. And when you need something more worldly than all that natural beauty, you can enjoy our first-rate restaurants, excellent shopping, challenging golf, and wealth of arts and cultural pursuits. With seven professional and community theaters, the Sarasota Opera and Sarasota Ballet, Florida West Coast Symphony, Van Wezel Performing Arts Hall and John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art among them, it's easy to see why we're called the Cultural Coast of Florida. Art fairs and reading festivals, lecture series and classes in a wide array of subjects are available. The people are friendly, too, since just about everybody comes from someplace else and knows what it's like to be new.

From golf villas to Gulf-front mansions, the housing options are equally varied and abundant. Sarasota, Manatee and Charlotte counties are in the middle of a historic housing boom. And that's good news for you, the homebuyer, because the range of building styles, prices and locations has never been wider.

That's where we can help. Homebuyer is the region's only comprehensive guide to choosing your new Sarasota, Manatee or Sarasota" target="_blank">Charlotte County home. Within these pages you'll find insider tips on the best neighborhoods, the latest architecture and design trends, a roundup of local schools, maps and reader-friendly community listings.

Homebuyer comes to you from the same creative team that brings you SARASOTA Magazine, the award-winning lifestyle magazine covering the area's liveliest people, places and leisure pursuits. So you know you're in good hands.

Welcome to the neighborhood-whatever location you choose.