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Buy low, make more money

By Janet Zink
Published March 11, 2006

TAMPA - Real estate agent Fran Costantino has long been a cheerleader for living in Ybor City.

But even she was shocked to hear that Forbes.com had listed Ybor City as one of the best places in the country to buy a house - and Davis Islands and Hyde Park among the worst.

"Stop it!" she sputtered.

"Where did they get their information?" asked an incredulous Vince Pardo, manager of the Ybor City Development Council.

"You're kidding," said City Council member and Davis Islands resident Linda Saul-Sena.

It's no joke.

Forbes.com based the ranking on investment returns from 2003 to 2005, after examining home sale prices from the nation's biggest metropolitan areas.

The Web site ranked the 20 best and 20 worst neighborhoods, based on ZIP codes, to buy a house.

The 33606 ZIP code, which includes tony Davis Islands and Hyde Park, ranked 19th on the list of worst buys. The area's median home price was $300,000 in 2005, a mere 17 percent increase over 2003.

The 33605 ZIP code, which includes Ybor City, ranked 12th on the list of best buys. The median price was $118,000 in 2005, a 93 percent increase over 2003.

"That's my reward for coming here in 1999," Costantino said. "We couldn't even get bank loans when I came. Everything had to be bought with cash or owner financing."

Since then, developers have gobbled up cheap land to build condos, and people looking for historic homes to rehabilitate are turning to the rundown bungalows and shotguns around Ybor.

"They're still affordable," Costantino said. "They have to be gutted, need new plumbing, new electric, new roof. Sometimes they have to jack up the floors. But they want something historic."

Pardo has his own anecdotal evidence of Ybor's successful redevelopment. Ten years ago, houses on Fifth Avenue could be had for $14,000. Now they sell for more than $250,000.

Bob Glaser, chief executive of Smith and Associates Realtors Inc. and a longtime Hyde Park resident, said increased sales prices are just one factor to consider when looking at the quality of a neighborhood.

"Each of those neighborhoods has things that make them popular," he said. Ybor attracts people seeking an urban environment, he said.

"The person that lives in Hyde Park is looking for more of a family community with the schools right next to it," he said.

Saul-Sena said some people want fixer-uppers, and others want a home that's already fixed up.

Buying on Davis Islands or in Hyde Park is expensive but low maintenance. Ybor takes a little more work.

"It's a lot of time and energy that you have to put into fixing up your own house as well as your community," she said.

Some consider the work worth it.

"The neighborhood has many lovely qualities," Saul-Sena said. "It has trees, it has brick streets, it's close to a national historic landmark district. There's easy access to the interstate. It's relatively walkable," said Saul-Sena. "If you look at it in that context, it's an incredibly good deal."

Sara Clemence, author of the Forbes.com article, said the surprising best/worst ranking in Tampa repeated itself around the country.

"The neighborhoods or ZIP codes that had appreciated the most over the last couple years weren't the neighborhoods we think of as desirable," she said. "It wasn't Beverly Hills, Chicago's Gold Coast, the Upper East side of New York or Georgetown. It's places that in the past weren't desirable, like Watts in Los Angeles, or Northern Liberties in Philadelphia or the Lower East Side in New York," she said.

That's because the recent real estate boom has driven up prices so much in already expensive neighborhoods, most home buyers can't afford them, she said.

"Neighborhoods that tended to be lower-income neighborhoods started to look like real bargains," she said. "Prices have gotten high enough in expensive areas to make it worthwhile to take a risk on these other neighborhoods."

The Loop in Chicago, best rated by Forbes, saw a median increase of 206 percent. A St. Louis neighborhood, Maplewood/Richmond Heights, earned the worst rating, with a 28 percent drop in home values.

Pardo, who has been promoting the residential potential of Ybor for years, called the ranking exciting.

"It shows very definitely the demand for the inner city," Pardo said. "What it means for us is great. I'm surprised, but very pleasantly surprised."

Janet Zink can be reached at jzink@sptimes.com or 813 226-3401.

For more city rankings, go to www.forbes.com/lifestyle/realestate

[Last modified March 11, 2006, 02:08:47]