Top Luxury Real Estate Agent in Sarasota & Longboat Key

If you are buying or selling a luxury home on Florida’s Gulf Coast, the agent you choose will shape the outcome more than almost any other decision you make. Sarasota has thousands of licensed agents. Only a small handful genuinely know the waterfront and barrier-island markets — Longboat Key, Bird Key, St. Armands, Lido, and Downtown Sarasota — well enough to price a high-end property correctly and protect you through a complex transaction.

Danielle Gladding & Co. Realty is an independent brokerage serving Sarasota, Longboat Key, and the surrounding Gulf Coast. Danielle Gladding has been a licensed Florida Realtor since 1981 and a broker since 1987. Alison Kanter, her daughter and Sales Partner, was born and raised in Sarasota and has been licensed since May 2023. They work every transaction together.

We are Danielle Gladding and Alison Kanter — a mother-daughter luxury team, and we will give you the straight answer on how to choose well, whether or not you ever choose us. Danielle has been licensed in this market since 1981 and a broker since 1987. Alison has been licensed in Florida since May 2023 and holds the Certified Waterfront Specialist, RENE, and CRLS designations. Between us, we have worked across the barrier islands and the mainland neighborhoods since 1981. Here is what actually separates a great luxury agent from the rest.

What to Look For in a Sarasota Luxury Agent

Decades of local tenure, not just a license

Waterfront and island markets have quirks a newcomer cannot learn from a market report: how seawall permits and disclosures work, which streets hold value through a downturn, how a condominium association’s finances can quietly derail a sale, how flood zones shape both pricing and insurance. An agent who has lived here for decades reads these situations first-hand instead of discovering them at the closing table. Danielle arrived in Sarasota in 1976 and has not just sold this market but lived in it — making her home over the years in Harbor Acres, Golden Gate Point, Downtown Sarasota, St. Armands, Lido Key, and now on the water in Bay Isles on Longboat Key. She has raised a family here and watched every one of these neighborhoods move through every market cycle since 1976. That is not a résumé line. It is the kind of authority that only comes from having actually lived it.

A track record across the market that matches yours

Sarasota and Longboat Key are really a collection of very different micro-markets — barrier-island estates, Gulf-front condominium towers, gated waterfront enclaves, downtown high-rises, and mainland luxury all behave differently. A great agent knows where a property sits in that larger picture and can price and position it accordingly, whether you are buying or selling. Between the two of us, we work across the barrier islands and the mainland neighborhoods of Sarasota and Longboat Key, and we bring transactions going back to 1981 to draw on. Ask any agent where they actually work and how deep that experience runs. Ours spans the entire luxury market here — not one corner of it.

Someone who leads with price discipline

In today’s market, price drives everything. The best agents price to the current market rather than to a seller’s hopes, and they will tell you plainly what a home is worth even when it is not what you want to hear. We have both watched hesitation and wishful pricing leave real money on the table, and we take that personally. You will get the number we believe is right, the number we think you could reach, and a candid account of what stands between the two.

An investor’s eye, not just a sales pitch

There is a difference between an agent who lists homes and one who has actually put their own capital into this market. Danielle has spent a long stretch of her career acquiring, renovating, and reselling residential and commercial property. Alison has remodeled and sold homes in Greenville, South Carolina and in Sarasota, and is a part owner of a family apartment building in Sarasota’s Laurel Park that she helped renovate. When either of us tells you a targeted renovation could move your sale price, we are not reciting best practices — we are drawing on projects we funded and finished ourselves.

Real community roots

An agent embedded in the community — through clubs, boards, and long-standing local relationships — brings a network that surfaces opportunities and buyers that never reach the open market. Danielle serves as President of the Kiwanis Club of Longboat Key and on the boards of the State College of Florida Foundation and Save Our Seabirds; her husband Nick is a Longboat Key Town Commissioner. Alison serves on the Humane Society of Sarasota board. These are not credentials for a bio. They are the relationships that quietly move real estate here.

About Danielle Gladding & Co. Realty

Danielle Gladding & Co. Realty is a Sarasota and Longboat Key luxury brokerage run as a true mother-daughter partnership, with roots in this market going back to 1976. Danielle Gladding has been licensed since 1981 and a broker since 1987, and she lives on the water in Queens Harbour inside Bay Isles on Longboat Key — a rare thing in luxury real estate: the listing broker actually lives in the community she sells. She is a Certified Waterfront Specialist.

Alison Kanter — Danielle’s daughter and business partner — is a Sarasota native, a Furman University graduate, and a Clemson MBA who built her foundation inside a multinational corporation before coming home to real estate. She brings analytical precision and a tech-forward discipline to a practice built on personal relationships, and she holds the Certified Waterfront Specialist, Real Estate Negotiation Expert, and Certified Residential Listing Specialist designations. She works the same full market Danielle does; neither agent is assigned a territory.

What makes the team work is not that we are alike. It is that we are different in exactly the right ways: Danielle’s market memory going back to 1981, instinct, and relationships meet Alison’s data fluency and precision. Our clients get two experienced sets of eyes on every transaction and a level of continuity a solo agent simply cannot match. The focus has always been on relationships and results rather than transaction volume — and on protecting clients through complicated deals.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who is the best luxury real estate agent in Sarasota?

The best luxury real estate agent in Sarasota is the one who can show you comparable closed sales and explain how they arrived at a number, who reads an association's reserve position and inspection status before you write rather than after, and who handles your file personally instead of passing you to an assistant. Ask any agent to demonstrate those three things and the field narrows quickly. Danielle Gladding & Co. Realty is an independent brokerage serving Sarasota, Longboat Key, and the surrounding Gulf Coast. Danielle Gladding has been a licensed Florida Realtor since 1981 and a broker since 1987, and holds the Luxury Homes Certification along with the Accredited Buyer’s Representative, Certified Waterfront Specialist, and Certified Residential Listing Specialist designations.

What neighborhoods does Danielle Gladding & Co. Realty specialize in?

The team works the full range of waterfront and luxury submarkets across Sarasota and Manatee County together — the islands, downtown, West of the Trail, and the mainland communities. Neither agent works a separate territory. Together they work across the barrier islands and the mainland neighborhoods, with extended reach across Sarasota and Manatee County through client relationships built since 1981.

Why work with a mother-daughter real estate team?

A two-person team built across two generations gives clients continuity, complementary strengths, and two experienced perspectives on every transaction. Danielle Gladding brings market memory going back to 1981, instinct, and community relationships; her daughter Alison Kanter brings a Clemson MBA, corporate analytical discipline, and tech-forward precision. Working every file together means you always get the specialist for your specific neighborhood rather than a generalist covering the whole county.

What should I ask when interviewing a Sarasota luxury agent?

Ask how long the agent has actually worked in your specific neighborhood, how they arrive at a listing or offer price, and how they handle waterfront-specific issues like seawall permits and condominium-association disclosures. Also ask whether you will work with them directly or be handed off to a junior team member, and whether they have any first-hand investment or renovation experience — an agent who has put their own capital into the market reads value and renovation potential differently than one who has not.

Is a bigger brokerage better for a luxury sale?

Not necessarily — for luxury and waterfront property, the individual agent’s neighborhood knowledge, pricing discipline, and negotiating experience in your price range matter far more than the brokerage’s size. An agent rooted in the local market often handles a complex luxury transaction better than a high-volume generalist, because the hard part of a high-end transaction is rarely the marketing; it is the pricing, the disclosures, and the negotiation.

If you are thinking about buying or selling in Sarasota or on Longboat Key in the next year or two, a private conversation costs nothing. We will give you a candid read on your situation and your options — no pressure, no pitch, just straight answers from the team that actually lives in this market.

Danielle & Alison · Danielle Gladding & Co. Realty

Danielle: (941) 539-8535 · Alison: (941) 306-9786 · DanielleGladdingCo.com

A Private Conversation Costs Nothing

If you are weighing a move here, reach out for a candid read on your situation from both of us. Danielle: (941) 539-8535 · Alison: (941) 306-9786 · DanielleGladdingCo.com