Real Estate

Tampa home prices could be stabilizing

It’s unsafe to call a Tampa Bay housing recovery without the presence of two good omens:

(1)Homes sales have to start rising. (1) And home prices have to rise in tandem with sales.

For the past nine months the gods have smiled on home sales. Measured year to year, sales have risen every month since August, thanks in part to investors buying foreclosure homes.What has been lacking are signs that prices have stabilized after the housing market’s three-year, 40-percent depreciation.Until now.Based on April home sales, we might be observing a price stabilization trend, particularly in Pasco and Pinellas counties.From February to April, prices of homes sold conventionally — those unencumbered by foreclosure or mortgage defaults — stopped dropping. Prices have actually inched up in some places in those three months.Assuming that trend is a statistical false start, Pasco County offers further proof that a price floor is materializing. Since February, homes sold via short sale — when a bank lets a homeowner sell for less than the mortgage debt — have collected almost the same prices as conventional sales.Why is that significant? Short sales can take months to negotiate. Banks rarely write off such losses willingly. To compensate for the nuisance of lengthy negotiating, buyers of short sale homes expect a large discount.

Below is a graphic of Average Home Sale Prices in Florida.