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Housing Prices Slip 19.6% Locally

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By SHANNON BEHNKEN

The Tampa Tribune

Published: May 28, 2008

TAMPA - If it's true that misery loves company, here's some good news: Even though Tampa Bay area home prices keep falling, other cities are seeing much steeper declines.

The Tampa area saw home prices drop 19.6 percent in March, compared with a year ago. But there were six other metro areas with bigger declines among the 20 metro areas tracked, according to the S&P/Case-Shiller home price index, released Tuesday.

Now for the bad news: Prices are expected to drop a lot more.

Moody's Economy.com is calling for prices to fall 25 percent more in the Tampa area before they hit bottom. That isn't expected to happen until the first quarter of 2010, said Chris Lafakis, who covers Florida for Moody's.

"We were hoping that by now we'd be seeing a bottom in sales, and that's not happening. The amount of inventory is still elevated, and the existing home sales we are seeing include foreclosure sales, and that's downbeat for prices."

Prices have fallen 23 percent in the Tampa metro area since the housing boom's peak in July 2006, according to S&P data. That month, the Florida Association of Realtors reported the median sales price of single-family, existing homes was $237,000 for the Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater metro area. In April, the last month reported, the Realtor's group reported a median sales price of $176,000.

Tuesday's S&P report compared recorded sales prices in March with the same month a year ago. It also showed a 3.4 percent drop from February, when Tampa had the sixth-steepest price decline. However, the yearlong decrease then was less severe at 17.5 percent.

The other Florida city to make the list was Miami, which ranked second-worst for its 24.6 percent drop.

Las Vegas home prices fell 25.9 percent, the largest yearlong decrease.

Phoenix was third at 23 percent. Los Angeles and San Diego rounded out the top five with 21.7 percent and 20.5 percent drops, respectively. The Tampa area was edged out of sixth place by San Francisco's 20.2 percent drop.

March's report showed prices in the 20 metro areas fell by the steepest rate in at least seven years.

The index dropped 14.4 percent from a year earlier, the most since the figures were first published in 2001. The gauge has fallen every month since January 2007.

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

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