Housing Market Perks Up Slightly

TAMPA - The Tampa Bay area's housing market is still painful. Sales are down, prices are down.

But, it's better than it was last month.

There were 1,107 sales in March, an 11 percent decline from the same month last year, according to data released Tuesday from the Florida Association of Realtors. And the median sales price of homes in the Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater area was $180,500, an 18 percent decline from $219,800 last March.

Compare that with February: Sales were down 29 percent and prices were down 14 percent. The median sales price in March even rose a bit from February's $178,900.

The data show some good signs, depending on what side of the housing market you fall on, said Chris Lafakis, an economist who covers Florida for Moody's Economy.com.

"It looks like we're getting closer to a bottom in sales, but prices need to fall farther to move the inventory."

The condo market worsened and showed no signs of a bottom.

There were 107 sales in March in the Bay metro area, a 30 percent decline from the same month last year. The median sales price was $141,300, a 16 percent decline from $168,500 in March 2007.

In February, there were 414 condo sales, and the median price was $153,100.

Nationwide, March was the seventh consecutive year-over-year drop in prices, although the March sales prices were up slightly from a February median price of $195,600.

The National Association of Realtors said sales of existing single-family homes and condominiums dropped by 2 percent in March to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.93 million units.

The median price of a home sold last month was $200,700, a decline of 7.7 percent from the median price a year ago. That was the second biggest year-over-year price decline after a record 8.4 percent drop in February. The records go back to 1999.

The Northeast was the country's only region to experience a rise in median prices, which were up 4.6 percent compared with a year ago. Prices were down in all other regions of the country, dropping by 14.7 percent in the West, 7.1 percent in the South and 5.3 percent in the Midwest.