Tampa, Florida home sales counter national trend

Florida and Tampa are bucking a national trend in housing and posting faster growth in home sales with prices remaining relatively stable.

Existing home sales in the Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater area increased 10 percent in September compared to last year, an upward trend that's gone on since January.

With 2,375 single family homes trading hands, Tampa outsold all other markets in the state, including Miami, by a wide margin. Miami had 848 sales.

Median home prices in the Tampa Bay area effectively hovering at $126,900, according to the Florida Realtors association.

Even combining single family homes and condominiums, Tampa had 1,000 more sales than Miami.

Tampa's condo market continues to slip somewhat, with sales down 3 percent and prices down 6 percent to $80,000.

The glut of foreclosed homes isn't necessarily going away, but "there is a degree of certainty that is helping the market," said John Tuccillo, an economist with the realty association.

Nationally, the picture looks far different.

Home sales are on pace to match last year's dismal figures — the worst in 13 years.

The National Association of Realtors said Thursday that home sales dropped 3 percent last month to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.91 million homes. That's below the 6 million that economists say is consistent with a healthy housing market.

Activity among first-time buyers accounted for 32 percent of all sales, the same as August. First-time buyers are critical to a housing recovery because their purchases of low and moderately priced homes allow sellers to move up to more expensive homes.

Homes at risk of foreclosure edged down to 30 percent of sales, from 31 percent in August. Many of the sales went to investors, who are buying homes under $100,000. Their purchases made up 19 percent of all sales last month, down slightly from 22 percent in August.

The large number of unsold homes and foreclosures on the market are sending prices lower and hurting sales, analysts said.

"Home prices continue to languish and now appear to be dropping again," said Steven Wood, chief economist at Insight Economics.