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Letter to the editor

Home sellers face tough task

State sales figures have fallen to their lowest levels since 2002.

By CHRISTINA REXRODE
Published June 26, 2007

If you're a real estate agent, the bay area is a rough place to be right now ... and it's getting rougher. In May, home sales here fell harder than almost anywhere in the country.

The good news (for buyers, anyway): Prices are falling, too, though not as quickly.

According to information released Monday by the Florida Association of Realtors, sales of existing single-family homes in the Tampa Bay area fell 42 percent last month, compared with May 2006.

The Realtors group points out that the decline in sales merely puts the Florida real estate market in line with where it was five years ago, before the housing boom. But prices haven't returned to the same level. In May, the median price of an existing home in the bay area was $209,300, an 8 percent decline from the previous year.

In May 2002, the median price of a home here was $124,700.

Carlos Fuentes, president of Greater Tampa Association of Realtors, didn't seem alarmed by the sales decline. Sellers will just have to market their homes more aggressively and offer more incentives to potential buyers. Besides, he said, the Tampa Bay area offers plenty of charms that will continue to persuade people to move here:

"Low unemployment, incentives from local governments to businesses willing to establish themselves here, a willingness of employees to relocate here compared to Buffalo, N.Y."

The Legislature's move this month to cut property taxes and insurance bills should also encourage people to buy homes, he said.

Home sales also declined - albeit less severely - across the state and across the country. In Florida, sales of existing homes fell 34 percent from a year ago. Ocala and Miami were the only locales whose home sales fell harder than Tampa Bay's.

(Two areas bucked the trend: In Naples, sales were up 28 percent; in Panama City, 10 percent.)

Nationwide, sales of existing homes were down 10.8 percent from a year ago, according to data released Monday by the National Association of Realtors.

The national median price of an existing home slipped to about $223,000, marking a record 10 consecutive months of decline.

The Realtors organization blamed one usual suspect - tighter credit standards due to the subprime mortgage fallout - and one unusual one - changes in household formation.

Lawrence Yun, the group's senior economist, theorized that more people are bunking with roommates or moving back in with parents, and thus buying fewer homes.

[Last modified June 25, 2007, 23:20:37]