Tampa area home prices continued to fall in November, but the monthly decline no longer is the nation's worst.
Greater Tampa saw a 0.4 percent dip in home prices compared with the previous month and a 13.2 percent drop from the same month a year ago, according to the S&P/Case-Shiller Metro Area Home Price Indices.
This comes after October's data showed a 1.6 percent monthly decline and a 15.2 percent yearly drop. October's monthly drop was the steepest among all the metro areas tracked by S&P/Case-Shiller.
The nation overall did better than Tampa. Home prices rose for the sixth straight month in November.
Karl Case, co-creator of the indexes, cites signs of stability that were in stark contrast to rapidly falling prices a year ago. "Flat is good," he said.
Phoenix and San Francisco posted the highest month-to-month gains on a seasonally adjusted basis. New York and Chicago had the largest declines.
A federal tax credit is thought to have fueled sales gains. The tax credit for first-time homebuyers had been scheduled to end Nov. 30, but Congress extended it through April and expanded it beyond first-time buyers.
In Las Vegas, prices edged up 0.1 percent, the first month-to-month increase since January 2007. Still, prices are down 56 percent in Las Vegas since peaking in April 2006. Tampa area prices are down 41 percent since they peaked in July 2006.
"Tampa and Las Vegas are at their bottoms," said David Blitzer, head of the indexes board. "Other cities may be showing increases, but those cities were more boring during the boom. Tampa and Las Vegas both saw large run-ups in prices."
The list of cities with price increases, on a seasonally adjusted basis, includes Los Angeles, San Diego, Denver, Boston and Charlotte, N.C.
Tampa had its lowest index reading in November.
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