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Shocked by home prices? Visit us!

It used to be folks working in Tampa turned to Pasco County for affordable new housing. But with Pasco prices climbing well over $200,000, Hernando is where it's at.

By JAMES THORNER and JENNIFER LIBERTO
Published March 13, 2005

Arif Rahaman feasted his eyes on the tidy rows of new houses at Suncoast Meadows on State Road 54.

Then the prices in the Pasco County subdivision - nothing less than $200,000 per house as of this month - started to make him gag.

So now it's Spring Hill in Hernando County that's beckoning this budget-conscious would-be home buyer. Prices on SR 54 were just too crazy.

"I was just amazed by Pasco prices. Five to 10 years ago who would have thought," the 31-year-old Clearwater cell phone salesman said. "Wish I had invested in property earlier."

He's one of thousands drawing the same conclusion. Pasco, where even homes "from the 190s" are an endangered species, seems to be yielding the affordability label to Hernando.

You see it in the apologetic faces of Pasco sales people when young couples arrive looking for "something in the 160s." As often as not, they're pointed 20 miles up the road to Hernando.

You see it in the lines of house hunters at Pasco sales centers that partly melt away at first glimpse of price sheets.

Hernando shares the distinction, along with south Hillsborough County's Riverview and Gibsonton communities, of selling homes priced well below those of the suburbs of central Pasco.

For those seeking three- or four-bedroom houses north of Tampa, particularly on the Suncoast Parkway corridor, Hernando means savings of at least $15,000.

"We're getting more people looking for a better value, and also people looking to get out of congestion," said longtime Hernando builder Bob Eaton of Artistic Homes. "But that's part of the American way."

Pasco's alleged shortcomings, be they high prices or congestion, have driven home buyers to Hernando for decades. But Realtors and developers note that the opening of the Suncoast Parkway in 2001, and the higher land prices in Pasco, have intensified the trend.

At the end of 2004, Hernando's average new home price stood at about $190,000, roughly $20,000 below Pasco's average price of $211,000. Subdivision-by-subdivision comparisons bear that out.

Lennar, the national home builder, sells a 1,446-square-foot "everything's included" model at Suncoast Meadows in Pasco for $205,990. The same model at Sterling Hill in Spring Hill lists for $190,990.

The same goes for M/I Homes' 1,808 square-foot model at Tierra Del Sol on U.S. 41 in Pasco vs. the same house in Sterling Hill. The price is $211,990 in Pasco and $192,990 in Hernando.

Susan and Jack Ruegamer planned to move closer to family in Pasco when they left the Catskill Mountain town of Greenville, N.Y, population 3,000.

After a few days of driving around Pasco, they hated the traffic and prices. Their hopes of living near the Anclote or Pithlachascotee rivers dashed, they grabbed a map of Hernando.

"Hernando was much less crowded, and I just thought it was a prettier area," said Susan Ruegamer, 48, who bought a Hernando Beach house with Jack, 50, about a year ago.

The Hernando market offered more house for the dollar. The Ruegamers paid $250,000 for a three-bedroom stilt waterfront home on Sheephead Drive. Their living room balcony overlooks their boat docked on a canal leading to the Gulf of Mexico.

"I just didn't think you were getting the same value in Pasco County," Mrs. Ruegamer said. But the Ruegamers are self-employed and don't commute. If you're a commuter dependent on a job in Tampa, Hernando has obvious drawbacks.

Hernando isn't the bargain it seems when you tabulate the gas burned on the longer commute and the cost of tolls on the Suncoast Parkway, said Tampa Bay area housing analyst Marvin Rose.

In fact, using Suncoast Meadows and Sterling Hill as benchmarks, Hernando is about 25 miles farther away and $4 per day more costly in tolls. That's a couple of thousand dollars more a year in driving expenses.

Of course, based on the cars pouring down Pasco's Shady Hills Road at rush hour - and a similar torrent down U.S. 41 - it's clear many Hernando residents are avoiding the parkway.

In many ways, Hernando is still Pasco's junior cousin. As Pasco's population approaches 400,000, Hernando's has recently eased past 150,000. Pasco approved about 6,300 homes in 2004, Hernando 2,756.

Watch for Hernando's numbers to grow, though. The parkway is luring such developments as Southern Hills Plantation, Trillium and Majestic Oaks. And housing analysts are finally taking note of a county that has been ignored as an outsider in the Tampa metropolitan area.

Rose, who publishes a monthly newsletter for builders and developers, plans to start tracking the Hernando market in 2006. His competitor, the national firm Metrostudy, already does so.

And as long as Pasco's prices continue to push out of sight, its northern neighbor can only look more attractive.

Dan Richard, a broker with Exit Success Realty in Spring Hill, said nearly a third of the company's business is drawn from residents living farther south looking for a better value.

"It just keeps going," Richard said of his company's near-record sales. "I don't see it stopping."

[Last modified March 13, 2005, 00:22:15]