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Reports Offer Glimmer Of Hope To Tampa Housing Market

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By SHANNON BEHNKEN | The Tampa Tribune

Published: August 26, 2008

TAMPA - Two housing reports today offer more hope that a turnaround in the real estate market may be slowly emerging.

The Standard & Poor's/Case-Shiller home price index released today shows the rate at which Tampa area prices are falling has leveled off. Prices fell 20.1 percent in June from a year ago, almost identical to the 20.2 percent decline in May and 20.4 percent drop in April.

Nationally, the news wasn't as good. The index, which pools prices from 20 cities, including Tampa, tumbled a record 15.4 percent during the quarter from the same period a year ago. The index fell by 15.9 percent in June compared with a year ago, the largest drop since its inception in 2000.

Also on Tuesday, the Commerce Department said sales of new homes rose in July, but still fell short of economists' expectations.

The report said new-home sales rose by 2.4 percent last month to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 515,000 units, the most since April. But sales in June had plummeted to a pace of just 503,000 — down from previous estimates of 530,000 — to mark the worst showing since September 1991.

The report also said the median price of new homes fell 6.3 percent to $230,700 in July.

David Blitzer, spokesman for Standard & Poor's, said Tampa is among a handful of cities showing "small hints" of stability.

"It's not like prices are going to start rising next week, but this is better," Blitzer said. "Prices are still falling, but the pace is slowing down."

Don't cheer too much, though. Moody's Economy.com is still calling for prices to fall month to month until late 2009.

In the S&P's/Case-Shiller report, Tampa's price drop ranked seventh highest among the 20 cities tracked in the report.

Fourteen cities in the monthly index showed improvement from May to June, but only nine recorded positive returns.

For the third straight month, no city in the index saw price gains in June compared with a year ago.

Las Vegas led the largest annual declines, falling 28.6 percent. Miami, the only other Florida city on the list, was next at 28.3 percent, followed by Phoenix at 27.9 percent.

Charlotte, N.C., the last city in the index to report yearly depreciation during the current housing downturn, posted its largest drop since 1991 at 1 percent. Until April, the city had been the only metro with positive yearly price gains.

The index's glimmer of hope follows another surprisingly positive housing headline on Monday. Existing home sales rose in July, surpassing expectations, as buyers snatched up cheap distressed properties in the hardest hit housing markets.

In the Tampa area, sales prices of existing homes rose 5 percent in July compared with the same month a year ago. That was the largest increase since sales started to fall in December 2005.

The price declines, Blitzer said, are painful for sellers but necessary to spur the uptick in sales and work off excess housing inventory.

Information from the Associated Press was used in this report. Reporter Shannon Behnken can be reached at (813) 259-7804 or sbehnken@tampatrib.com.

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