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Housing bubble hasn't burst here

Construction and prices surged this summer, making the new home market the most robust in Pasco's history.

By JAMES THORNER
Published October 30, 2005

The more the experts talk about vulnerable real estate bubbles, the more Pasco County's new home market seems to defy the bubble babble.

Housing figures for the third quarter of this year, July 1 to Sept. 30, show the most robust new home market in the region's history.

In Pasco alone, builders started construction on 2,623 homes in the three months ending Sept. 30. Compare that to the same period last year, when builders started 1,934 homes.

Home prices, too, remained pumped: The average cost of a detached house in Pasco rose this past year from $252,000 to $309,000. That's an annual increase of 23 percent.

The average price of attached homes, which include duplexes and townhomes, jumped from $174,200 to $231,400, a gain of 33 percent.

And people are living large: The average floor plan in Pasco now measures 2,396 square feet.

"It's far better than we've ever seen," said Tony Polito, whose firm, Metrostudy, provided the housing data.

Ballantrae, a housing development north of State Road 54 between the Suncoast Parkway and U.S. 41, led the pack in Pasco.

Over the past year, it recorded 584 housing starts, mostly the work of builders M/I Homes and KB Home.

Polito cited enormous pent-up demand for housing on that stretch of State Road 54 in Land O'Lakes, demand only partly filled by one large housing development after another over the past five years.

"First it was Oakstead, then it was Ivy Lake Estates, now it's Ballantrae," he said.

Meadow Pointe, at 452 homes, and Seven Oaks, at 387 homes, were Nos. 2 and 3 in the Pasco housing sweepstakes. Both dominate fast-growing Wesley Chapel.

It was the same everywhere in the regional housing market tracked by Metrostudy: Pasco, Pinellas, Hillsborough, Hernando and Citrus counties.

The overall Tampa Bay area market logged 6,633 housing starts during the third quarter of 2005, an increase of 31 percent over last year's total of 5,075.

Driving much of the growth is Tampa's 3.7 percent unemployment. The region added 33,400 new jobs in the 12 months ending Sept. 30, the Bureau of Labor Statistics said. Over the same period, Florida created 239,600 jobs.

Tampa ranks 10th in the nation in job growth, a strong performance it's expected to duplicate the next decade.

Construction accounted for only 5,000 of the Tampa area's new jobs. But business services, a category that includes mortgage lending and real estate sales, accounted for thousands more jobs.

Like many in the real estate prognostication field, Polito expects price increases to slow over the next year. Home prices are outstripping family incomes. Though low interest rates on mortgages have helped offset income shortfalls, those, too, are now rising.

"We do think the market will begin to level," Polito said. "We predict a robust start to '06 and a possible slowing toward the end of '06 into '07."

Top bay area housing developers by housing starts

FishHawk Ranch (Hillsborough)889

Ballantrae (Pasco)584

Rivercrest (Hillsborough)548

Sterling Hill (Hernando)521

Meadow Pointe (Pasco)452

Live Oak Preserve (Hillsborough)444

Seven Oaks (Pasco)387

Citrus Hills (Citrus)364

Valhalla Townhomes (Hillsborough)346

Covington Park (Hillsborough)321

[Last modified October 30, 2005, 01:13:18]