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Stop writing about cost of housing? It's not easy

By ROBERT TRIGAUX
Published October 30, 2006

Don't know about you, but the past week's megabursts of numbers about our housing market left me wishing for simpler days. You know, when a home was just four walls and a roof - not a highly leveraged investment on which many of us speculatively pin our future retirements.

Gimme shelter from data overload. What on earth to make of the latest on the lack of home sales, for-sale inventory, median housing price declines (and the still occasional price increase) and mortgage rate forecasts? Not to mention the growing water cooler buzz of how many "Reduced For Sales" signs are cropping up on the block, and can-you-top-this pitches from area real estate agents who are throwing in a free minivan, or a free Mustang, or - in the case of the $775,000 house listing on Tallahassee Drive in St. Petersburg - the free 1998 Porsche sitting in the driveway.

At this rate, some motivated sellers may throw in the kids with the car.

There's no need to rehash all the latest housing market reports. The short version is overheated housing is cooling. More homes remain for sale. Prices are starting to drop in more neighborhoods, though the Tampa Bay area seems to be muddling through better than many other parts of Florida's west coast.

I try to mix up the topic of these Monday business columns. But I'm back on housing because it's still the white-hot subject of reader interest and controversy. Some thoughts:

- The runaway housing market probably would not have occurred if the stock market had not tanked six years ago. All those dollars once destined for stock purchases got rerouted to housing when the Federal Reserve started dropping interest rates. Now that the Dow is up again, 90 points above 12,000, and housing is coming back to earth, will we see a swing of the investment pendulum back to Wall Street?

- Experts seem to be focusing on the spring of 2007 for the general end of the housing downturn. If that's reasonably accurate, the Tampa Bay area will not face the steep sales price cuts that are predicted nearby in the state (Sarasota and Cape Coral, among others) and the country. But even a calmer market here for housing will make the typical single-family home well out of the reach of the average wage worker. The affordability gap in housing will be an enduring theme for years to come.

- Two recent polls conducted by the St. Petersburg Times offer some insights into the perception of high-priced housing in the Tampa Bay area. The first survey, reported in the new Sunday Times section Working on Oct. 22 indicated that area companies are finding housing prices, when compared with the offered job pay here, are a growing impediment to hiring out-of-area talent. The second survey, noted in the Times on Friday, found that one in three Floridians have seriously considered moving out of the Sunshine State because of rising property taxes and insurance premiums - two big parts of most homeowners' housing costs.

Worry over homes is not just about buying too high or selling too low. Residential housing is critical to high-growth Tampa Bay and surrounding area job markets in Florida, where housing-related industries account for a remarkable one-fifth of our jobs.

Robert Trigaux can be reached at trigaux@sptimes.com or (727) 893-8405.

[Last modified October 29, 2006, 20:55:28]