Business trends for 2006

Market to swing back to buyers

HOUSING

Cheap loans, plentiful jobs and hungry investors drove local home prices skyward last year. But 2006 will be a different story.

"For sale" signs are staying up longer. Insurance rates and property taxes are climbing. Mortgage rates may follow suit.

It's a modest conclusion to what turned out to be a record year of price appreciation and sales activity, as well as an abundance of new construction and apartment-to-condo conversions.

Home buyers and renters will be the big winners, while sellers will suffer. Some ballyhooed projects won't grow beyond the blueprint stage. Speculators will resist the temptation to invest more cash.

"If anybody thinks we're not in a bubble," Pinellas County property appraiser Jim Smith said, "they're out of their tree."

Waterfront property will remain an exception, St. Petersburg real estate lawyer Bob Decker said. It remains a bargain compared to other coastal areas.

Some real estate players welcome the craze's demise.

Said Tarpon Springs housing analyst Marvin Rose, "It's a much healthier market when housing is looked at as shelter."