Business: Real estate glut easing up

It's been the glut that wouldn't give, gumming up any chance of a housing recovery in the Tampa Bay area.

We're talking listings of houses and condominiums for sale, a figure that in April topped 50,000 in Pinellas, Pasco and Hillsborough counties.

Only now the glut appears to be in retreat. Home listings are at their lowest in more than year. In July the market counted just under 42,000 homes for sale.

Though encouraging news on its face, real estate boosters shouldn't cheer just yet. It's still a glass-half-empty-glass-half-full kind of story.

Sales have continued their postboom sluggishness, running about 40 percent under last year's numbers. And a significant part of the story is sellers who have grown sick of trying to move their properties and turned to renting.

Ann Guiberson, head of the Pinellas Realtors Organization, notes another trend: Agents refusing to take on listings when they think owners are overpricing properties.

She could be talking about Tony Marottoli, a Clearwater Realtor who spurns even million-dollar listings if he believes owners are unrealistic.

Here's an example from Belleair Beach: The owner bought a house for $400,000 three years ago and wanted Marottoli to list it for $1.4-million. He wasn't interested.

"Not gonna happen," Marottoli said. "It's old. It's dated. It's a '60s house. If the market weren't dead, it could be a different story."

At this rate it's still about a year before the region could eat through the inventory and emerge with a healthy balance between supply and demand. Prices have suffered as supply outpaces demand.

"But we seem to have seen the worst of the glut," Guiberson said. "Inventory peaked a few months ago."

Listings peaked in Hillsborough and Pinellas in March and April and have since declined more than 10 percent. Pasco's home inventory stands about 17 percent below its high point last August.

Share your thoughts on this story

Read our guidelines for comments

Comments on this article

by mmike	09/27/07 11:03 PM
builders assoc. wants lower rates to get it going again. well, the party is over. most builders doubled their selling price on the same model in 5 years. Their greed broke their bag. Most high end builders are off 200 to 300 too high. Cut prices.

by Bret	08/16/07 10:34 AM
It will still take a while to get through the 42K homes, but like one other person said, builders have slowed way down which also will help. Forbes Magazine recently ranked Tampa the #1 place to buy a home. Things will improve!

by Bob	08/14/07 05:18 PM
Bob O is right on the money !!!! Fully concur. And one should realize there is no ABSOLUTE value to a house. Rather a house is worth no more nor no less than what a WILLING and ABLE Buyer will/can pay for it. NOW buyers are LESS WILLING & ABLE.

by Bob O	08/14/07 12:38 PM
Sellers need to understand that what they cna realisticlly expect to get for their house has absolutely nothing to do withhow much profit they need for a down payment on the next house. they are two unrelated transactions.

by Bob O	08/14/07 12:37 PM
Marotti is a real pro. He knows that taking an overpriced listing is a wate of time and will net him nothing but grief from the homeowner in the end. Selelrs need to get their head out of the clouds and get realistic.

by Bob	08/11/07 08:51 PM
Concur with much said: I know over here in Palm Beach Gardens and the Acreage scads of properties have been taken off the market, and scads more are "FOR SALE BY OWNER" (FSBO's) which your article ignores. The REAL GLUT is ENORMOUS !!!!

by Bob	08/11/07 08:45 PM
The greed of home sellers never ceases to amaze me: " The owner bought a house for $400,000 three years ago and wanted Marottoli to list it for $1.4-million." What planet is this greedy seller living on??? SELLERS:GET REAL - PRICES MUST DROP BIGTIME

by Jeff	08/11/07 10:15 AM
Also remember that almost no builders are building spec homes. so new home inventories are going down every month=much better balance between supply and demand.

by Barb	08/11/07 09:21 AM
Cliff, your "Realtor greed" assumption is incorrect. I have Sellers who listed their house last year & demanded a $60K profit & turned down offers delivering $40K..Guess what...now they will take a $60K loss and must sell. Who's greedy?

by Dave	08/11/07 08:54 AM
I got lucky and unloaded mine and moved north, I only had to loose $200,000. to sell it!

by Dee	08/10/07 10:20 PM
Sellers are over pricing. Lets be realistic, here. Trying to get 100k profit in 1-2 or even 3 years is unrealistic in any market. Hope prices keep going down!!!

by Rob	08/10/07 09:57 PM
Wish someone would tell CNN they had a article today that said tampa has 50000 homes one of the worst..

by Dave	08/10/07 09:05 PM
Feds didn't lower their rate a few days ago, why would you think next month? Nobody with half a brain thinks this market will change in the next year.

by Sam	08/10/07 09:03 PM
The FED cannot lower interest rates to save the Housing market at the expense of the wellbeing of the Nation. Dropping the interest rate will cause the Dollar to devalue further causing much worse problems than a down housing market.

by FLSucker	08/10/07 08:06 PM
Crappy wages, crappy education, crappy traffic, crappy hot weather, crappy insurance rates, crappy real estate with overly inflated prices. Are beaches and sunsets really worth putting up with all that? I'm outta here first chance I get.

by Jill	08/10/07 07:54 PM
I've been looking for a house in this area and can attest that homes ARE selling. Maybe it's taking a little longer. But I'm alerted when homes are going to contract. If the price is fair and the house is in good condition, it seems to sell.

by ELIZABETH	08/10/07 07:49 PM
It has been a false market the past 3 years with investors flipping and driving the prices up. Builders stopped building affordable housing for locals but built high end homes for investors who are now gone and we have homes locals cannot afford. Sad

by RDS	08/10/07 06:58 PM
A flat property tax of 1/2% of value will solve ALOT of problems for not only homeowner and business owners but also for inept legislatures.....keep it simple, the collected revenues would soar....

by RDS	08/10/07 06:42 PM
This is all cyclical. Over analyzing in this case is futile. Apparently the irrational exhuberance that has existed in this market for the past few yrs to the whole is still embedded in the perpetually greedy ones. The market ALWAYS corrects itself.

by mike	08/10/07 06:04 PM
The root cause is that working class wages in this area don't afford people a $250K house. Two people working make on average, enough to buy a $175K house. Everyone thinks their house is a worth a million, but nobody can afford that much.

by Joe	08/10/07 05:45 PM
Tell the whole story and how people who sold their home did it at a major loss and don't glorifiy the realator organization as doing anything right.

by Jeff	08/10/07 04:55 PM
Everyone chill. No matter what the reason is less listed inventory is a good thing. The FED is going to lower interest rates which will help stop defaults and the market will stabilize. Remember vote YES on Jan 29th

by Jerry	08/10/07 04:38 PM
Why do people think that just because their home supposedly appriciated during the crazy years from $80K to $220K that that means thier house is really and forevermore worth $220K. A house is only worth what someone will pay for it. Lower your price!

by cll2	08/10/07 04:17 PM
while this is good it is really the insurance industry that is killing most of us to stay, as usally we where promised lower rates from the govener at here some of us got an increase, other wise people would have lowered the prices on their homes

by JK	08/10/07 04:13 PM
need to get real. handyman's special, down the street.$107k, paid $65k in 97. it's a tear down, structual problems, next door to a condemned house that animal control pulled 13 dead cats out. how do you finance a housethat won't pass inspection?CASH?

by Russ	08/10/07 03:49 PM
Why is this paper so anti the new property tax propsal? If it doesn't pass, we'll all be paying income tax and higher sales tax soon, on top of the high cost of insurance and p-tax...I'll move for sure

by Lisa	08/10/07 03:46 PM
Maybe if we vote YES to the new tax proposal, my neighbor can sell her house and move to a condo and not feel like she is paying excessive taxes, and there will be a willing buyer to buy her house and not pay an unfair amount in taxes WIN/WIN !

by Sam	08/10/07 03:40 PM
Based on what a realtor said a year or two ago that my house would sell for, I would have made 18 percent a year since I bought it in 1986. Knock $25K off to sell and my return drops to 16.5 per year. Still hard to feel sorry for myself.

by Cliff	08/10/07 03:05 PM
agents&brokers have become like use car salesmen greed has set in glad to see agent turned down 300000 home boughtin 2005 owners now ask 1300000

by JD	08/10/07 03:03 PM
I sold my home in June. I listed in January. So it took 5 months and a $25K price reduction, but it sold. People are just unrealistic with their asking prices. If you price it right, it will sell. I got a great deal on my new home too. Life is good

by little frankie	08/10/07 02:51 PM
REAL ESTATE PEOPLE ARE NICE PEOPLE .. My mommy is a realestae agent she is terrific but now she drives an old 2006 caddy instead of her mercedes. mom barely broke six figures. Times are tuff.We need more suckers I mean customers to Buy tanks you

by John	08/10/07 02:27 PM
This is what happens when you allow speculation on residential housing. Hey, SPTimes, why not do an audit of all the flippers and see if they are taking more than one homestead exemption. I'm glad realtors are turning down speculators.

by lll	08/10/07 02:08 PM
If we sell where will we go, I could never get a house like mine for what I paid, its a joke and people are getting scared. Florida is turning into a destitute state. And what about the work for the construction industry. what about those people.

by Bill	08/10/07 02:05 PM
Invisible inventory is indeed massive. I know dozens of desperate sellers who have pulled their listings so they don't show up as old dead property. Also, the FSBO's have skyrocketed and that doesn't show in the numbers. It's still BAD out there!!

by Mike	08/10/07 01:45 PM
http://money.cnn.com/2007/08/10/real_estate/mortgage_meltdown_crushing_other_markets/index.htm?postversion=2007081011

Real estate glut easing up

Home listings drop to their lowest point in more than a year. That's mostly good news.