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From the 'bottom,' home sales plunge

Existing home sales fall relative to 2006, dispelling rebound signs.

By JAMES THORNER, Times Staff Writer
Published October 11, 2007

A pedestrian walks past a home for sale on 11th Avenue N in St. Petersburg's Old Northeast neighborhood. Home sales in Pinellas are down 31 percent from last year, which is better than the news in Pasco and and Hillsborough counties. Housing assist offered by Bush (un)Real Estate: Times reporter Jim Thorner blogs about the real estate market
	[Edmund D. Fountain | Times]

Bucking earlier predictions that the housing market might have struck bottom, local home sales just keep sinking further.

You would have to reach back at least five years in the Tampa Bay area to find monthly sales of existing homes as weak as September's.

Realtors reported Wednesday that 1,823 single-family homes and condos sold last month in Pinellas, Pasco and Hillsborough counties. That's 39 percent below the 2,972 homes that sold in September 2006 and 58 percent below the September peak of 4,329 homes in 2005.

Most disturbing for some in the housing industry was the sales plunge from August to September. Home purchases typically tail off between those two months as vacations wrap up and kids return to school.

But this year's slide was steeper as banks tightened home loan standards for less-than-creditworthy borrowers. Sales dropped 23 percent month-over-month, more than double the decline of the August-to-September period last year.

"Those same people who could get money a year ago will not be getting those home loans today," said Heidi Tuttle-Beisner, president of the West Pasco Board of Realtors.

Hillsborough showed the deepest decline, with existing home sales falling 44 percent year to year. Nevertheless, the communities in and around Tampa were least affected by home price declines. The median sales price of a single-family home stood at $229,900, 1 percent lower than a year earlier.

Pinellas home sales put in the best showing, falling 31 percent the past year. The county's median single-family home price slipped 8 percent to $199,000.

Worst hit on the price front was Pasco. Many of its neighborhoods suffer from a surplus of unsold investment homes. Pasco's median single-family home sale price plummeted 21 percent the past year, from $209,000 to $164,900.

"The homes that are selling are the ones where the owners ... say, 'I gotta go,'" said Rodney Jackson, a Pasco Realtor and home investor.

Jackson's personal tale of woe is typical. He bought five Pasco investment homes near the top of the market. Even after he slashed prices below what he paid, only a trickle of prospects showed up to look at the houses.

He's resorted to a short sale to avoid foreclosure on a new 2,450-square-foot house he bought last year in Land O'Lakes' Dupree Lakes neighborhood for $354,000. The bank agreed to a sale price of $257,000 and will forgive the rest of Jackson's mortgage debt.

"You can beat yourself up, but who knew they were overpaying for a house? Who knew it was going to stop?" Jackson said.

The sharp area sales declines are the second blast of rough housing news this week. Earlier, prominent real estate developer St. Joe Co. -- the state's largest private land owner -- said it was drastically curtailing its housing operations, cutting 760 jobs and putting 100,000 acres up for sale.

The Tampa area report, released in advance of a formal announcement later this month by the National Association of Realtors, continues to show stubbornly high inventories of unsold homes. More than 41,000 listings clutter the market, but the number has more or less plateaued over the past few months.

From his platform as president of the Greater Tampa Association of Realtors, Lutz agent Carlos Fuentes observes a mixed picture. Sales and prices are more stable in older Hillsborough neighborhoods largely unscathed by the investor element.

But head to some neighborhoods in New Tampa, and it's a different story.

"There were subdivisions that were so heavy with investors that when they threw these homes on the market, they have become disaster areas," Fuentes said. "It's quite disturbing."

Fuentes cited a host of variables that make predicting home sales a tricky proposition. Will the Federal Reserve lower interest rates? Will the state slash property taxes ? How will foreclosures color the picture?

"There are so many uncertainties," he said.

James Thorner can be reached at thorner@sptimes.com or (813) 226-3313.

Existing home sales
Existing sales of single-family homes and condos fall steeply in September:

	Sept. 2007 sales	Sept. 2006 sales	% change
Pinellas	709	1,028	-31 percent
Pasco	380	630	-40 percent
Hillsborough	734	1,314	-44 percent

 

	Aug. 2007 sales	% change (Aug.-Sept.)
Pinellas	851	-17 percent
Pasco	489	-22 percent
Hillsborough	1,036	-29 percent

Source: Pinellas Realtor Organization

[Last modified October 11, 2007, 01:40:29]