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Restraint called for in recapping year in housing

By JAMES THORNER, (Un)Real Estate
Published December 25, 2007

It's almost the end of December, time to give a year-end physical to the Tampa Bay area housing market. But before we begin poking and prodding, let's set a few ground rules. Wouldn't want things to get out of hand in this most festive of seasons.

First of all, I won't make tasteless jokes about the misfortune of owning a home in a region where housing values have fallen up to 20 percent the past year. If I were, I'd say: "If we took this housing bust's measurements, it would wear a size 42D."

I further promise not to spoof the holiday classic The 12 Days of Christmas. (If I were, I'd use the line: "On the first day of Christmas my banker gave to me, a mortgage for a fair fee.")

I also won't tweak dearly departed Coast Bank, which issued so many unwise home loans based on housing froth that the Bradenton lender went out of business last month. (If I were, I'd mention the company's $1.86-per-share acquisition price by St. Louis' First Banks as a "K-Mart Black Light Special.")

And far be it from me to make light of 9-to-5 jobbers who bought five investment houses with so-so credit and no money down and face foreclosure on all of them. (If I were, I'd point out that if you want to be Lord of the Manor you should have had at least $1,000 in the bank.)

I won't go after speculators who bought Clearwater condos for $400,000 and, after an 18-month slump, demand $1-million for the units. (If I did, I'd tell them they deserve to make $500,000 to ease the pain of waiting in line at the condo sales center for two hours in 2004.)

Finally, I won't question the brilliance of Trump Tower Tampa, the on-again, off-again, maybe-on-again condo high-rise that was supposed to give this region big-league credibility. (If I were, I'd have asked developers how they planned to stack 52 stories on an unstable postage-stamp-sized lot in a less-than-ritzy section of Tampa.)

Okay, now that we've set the ground rules, we can move on to our real estate Year in Review. On second thought, it looks as if we've run out of space. But nothing much happened in 2007 anyway.

James Thorner can be reached at thorner@sptimes.com. Read his (Un)Real Estate blog at blogs.tampabay.com/realestate.

[Last modified December 24, 2007, 18:15:20]