Tentative tunaround: Tampa area home sales up in May

Single family home sales in the Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater metro area rose in May by 1 percent compared to sales a year earlier.

The figures comes from the Florida Association of Realtors, which said sales totaled 2,270 in May 2008 versus 2,241 in May 2007. The association pulled its numbers from Pinellas, Pasco, Hillsborough and Hernando counties.

Year over year, prices declined 16 percent from $209,300 to $176,100 in our region.

As a general rule, sales have been rebounding in Florida cities where prices have dropped the most. Fort Myers, Punta Gorda, Melbourne, Sarasota and Fort Pierce all reported rising sales in May. As was the case in April, Fort Myers, where bargain hunters have been plucking up distressed properties, showed the biggest sales rise, at 43 percent.

Cities formerly immune to the Florida downturn are finally getting socked. Worst hit in that regard were Panama City and Tallahassee.

If this local turnaround continues a few more months, we can confidently predict that the market has bottomed as far as sales are concerned. Prices? Could be a different story. Most housing experts don't think prices will bottom until 2009 at the earliest.

Will gas prices kill suburban housing markets?

Let's address this "truism" before it morphs into Holy Gospel: Gas is so expensive that all those suburbs Americans have flocked to since World War II will turn into foreclosure wastelands and cities will see a grand revival. Here's a typical pronouncement:

Coldwell Banker sales associates working in urban markets across the United States indicate they are seeing interest in urban living increasing because of the high cost of gasoline. While 96 percent of the 903 sales associates surveyed report that rising gas and oil prices are a concern to their clients, 78 percent report that higher fuel costs are increasing their desire to consider living in an urban setting.

Like many "truths" repeated by the media, it's a gross oversimplification. The point is sound if you're talking about distant suburbs, places an hour or more removed from your place of work. Commuting costs could become a killer. But let's consider the weaknesses of the argument:

1. Many office parks are built in suburbs like New Tampa, eliminating long commutes and rendering the gas argument moot. Thanks to high gas prices, suburbs will have to become more than bedroom communities.
2. Home prices will remain generally more affordable in the suburbs. Many will calculate that the 'burbs are cheaper even accounting for gas prices.
3. People left the cities after WWII for good reasons. They were considered dirty, congested, expensive and crime ridden. The urban neighborhoods free of blights are often prohibitively expensive. Think South Tampa.
4. The people who report these stories, particularly in the big cities like New York, tend to hold cultural stereotypes about the sterility of the suburbs. It colors their coverage. Many fail to realize that it's easier to drive 45 minutes once a year to visit the city aquarium or art museum that it is to tolerate grafitti, armies of pan handlers, dark alleys and rats.

Finally there's this "on the other hand" from Coldwell Banker itself: Sales associates...reported they have seen an 84 percent spike in interest for properties with a home office, as compared to five years ago, indicating a trend towards telecommuting.

The upside of the downside: Retirees can afford our home

The Tampa Bay area grabbed the fifth spot on a list of the most affordable places to retire in the United States.

Fortune magazine said the real estate slump has given formerly high flying locations more down-to-earth prices. Miami led the list, followed by Las Vegas, Phoenix, San Diego and Tampa.

The Tampa region's median home sales price has fallen about 25 percent from its peak in mid-2006. That's a winning statistic when it comes to bargain hunters, according to the magazine.

"It's not the Atlantic coast of Florida, with symbols of opulence like lavish Palm Beach estates or multimillion-dollar spec homes," Fortune said. "But Tampa, with its more blue-collar feel, offers the same brand of South Florida living at a far more affordable price."

Despite feelings of gloom in local real estate brought on by foreclosures and slow sales, Fortune offered even more praise for Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater.

"More than other markets, Tampa could be nicely positioned for a rebound. Its relatively strong local economy, coupled with the fact that the bust hit here earlier than in some other markets, means that the downside may have largely played itself out," the article read.

Here's a link

Dear Mr. Government: Help!

Time for a guessing game. Guess who fashioned this quote of the week:

“Each week that goes by, another 15,000 workers are losing their jobs and 47,000 families are entering foreclosure. Home equity has fallen by $879 billion during the past year alone,” said Mystery Man X. “How many more Americans have to suffer before Congress will act?"

Al Sharpton? Ralph Nader? The American Association of People with Large Car Payments who Can't Afford their Mortgages?

It's Jerry Howard, head of the National Association of Home Builders. He and other fair weather free marketers are begging Congress and the president to pass a new tax credit for home buyers.

We've said it here before: The government already is a well oiled goody dispenser. Think federally supported home loans, the mortgage interest tax deduction or Florida's homestead exemption.

Howard was reacting to a June survey of his membership that showed business confidence matching a 23-year low.

I sympathize with the plight of businesses suffering through the downturn, newspapers included. But builders are already doing the right thing to right the market: They've cut prices and idled the bulldozers. The market must purge itself of the glut of unsold homes.

How does encouraging people to build NEW homes - apparently Howard's intention - do anything to reduce supply? 

Here's the full press release

Trump Tower Tampa developer files for bankruptcy

Nixed promises, failed financing deals, intertwining lawsuits: SimDag/Robel LLC faced all those pitfalls trying to erect the much-hyped Trump Tower Tampa.

It finally became too much. On Tuesday, SimDag filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in Tampa.

It's been more than 3 years since New York tycoon Donald Trump rolled into town to kick off sales for his namesake, a 52-story luxury condominium tower on the Hillsborough River at 111 S Ashley Drive.

SimDag would build the 190 units by licensing Trump's name. Trump would get half the profits from condo sales.

But as SimDag pressed the banking and investment community for a $200-million loan, the condo market was imploding. Buyers of units costing up to $6-million began dropping out and filing suit.

The low point came a year ago, when Trump, frustrated by more than $1-million in unpaid licensing fees, sued SimDag.

The bankruptcy filing lists $10- to $50-million in liabilities, many to condo buyers who gave SimDag deposits ranging up to $1.6-million. SimDag estimated its number of creditors exceeded 200.

A more detailed list of creditors, including Trump, Colonial Bank and various building contractors, will emerge in about two weeks.

If at first you don't succeed, take off your clothes

From today's Times:

You’re trying to sell units in a large condo project, but housing’s in the doldrums.

Don’t get depressed. Get undressed.

The Arbors at Branch Creek, a condo conversion project at 12401 W. Hillsborough Ave. near Westchase, has launched a parallel Web site that markets the property as a nude hideaway.

The new name: Eden. As in Adam and Eve and the fig leaf.

“Shed your inhibitions. Set yourself free. Live and love as nature intended. Escape to Eden,” the Web site announces to images of shapely, and mostly clothed, models.

A sales woman at the Arbors denied knowl­edge of a nude makeover. In its pre­naked incarnation, The Arbors adver­tised 1- to 3-bedroom units for up to $200,000. Eden advertises nude sunbathing, an 11-acre lake and an “adults-only clothing optional swim­ming pool."

Did Countrywide Home Loans pay off U.S. Senators?

When you're making what turned out to be reckless loans, it's good to have political cover.

Take the case of Countrywide Financial. The King of the Subprime apparently made sweetheart loans to high ranking U.S. senators when those very senators had oversight over Countrywide's dealings.

One extra wrinkle: They're Democrats and supporters of Barack Obama. He's the guy who's complained about "predatory lending" on the campaign trail.

In the case of North Dakota Sen. Kent Conrad, the senator personally solicited the low cost loan. Then Countrywide delivered.

Oh, by the way, Countrywide will benefit hugely from a proposed $300-billion mortgage industry bailout Democrats are floating in the name of staving off foreclosures.

The Wall Street Journal has been following the story. In the old days you could describe such dealings by a word beginning with B and ending with E and sandwiched around a RIB.

Your government at work.

Click here for whole story.

Mortgage rates could hold firm through summer

From the Wall Street Journal:

The Federal Reserve is almost certain to leave interest rates unchanged when it meets next week, and it currently doesn't appear to see a compelling case for raising rates before the fall, unless the inflation outlook deteriorates considerably

Futures markets are betting that the central bank is likely to raise its interest-rate target from its current 2% in August, because of mounting inflation worries. But that may be an overly aggressive wager.

An August rate hike can't be ruled out. Between now and then, a raft of economic data, including two employment reports and several gauges of inflation, will be released. If the overall economy and the financial system show signs of rapid improvement or the inflation news worsens significantly, the Fed may decide to start reversing some of the rate cuts that began last September.

But for now, Fed officials want to both demonstrate their vigilance against inflation risks, particularly from soaring energy prices and the weak dollar, while also giving the economy time to recover from the trouble in the housing, labor and financial markets.

Are the leprechauns losing their toadstools to foreclosure?

This may seem off topic, but here's an outtake from a British article about Ireland's rejection of the European Union treaty:

In the end, Irish voters were angry about a perceived loss of control – of the economy, of defence policy, of cultural values on issues such as abortion and euthanasia. The vote took place against a backdrop of a sharply deteriorating economy and soaring anxiety. Two days before voting, statistics showed a 40-year record in the monthly increase in unemployment. Retail sales have dropped three months in a row, while inflation fed by mortgage payments, energy and food has gone up. The housing market is in freefall.

In case any of us needed another lesson on the interconnectedness of the world economy. We overindulge in the U.S., we drag the Sons of Erin along with us.

Economist predicts no more 2005-style housing booms "in our lifetime"

I like to pass you guys tips I pick up on the road covering the business beat for the newspaper.

Here's a summary of what University of Central Florida economist Sean Snaith said Thursday in a private audience with the board of Enterprise Florida, the state's top business recruitment agency:

• The housing boom was so extreme - and the after effects so far reaching - that we probably won't see another such real estate gold rush in our lifetime.
• Such is the crisis of confidence  in real estate, builders and buyers will only "slowly tiptoe back to the housing market." Real estate won't return to positive territory until 2010.
• Snaith dubbed our energy/credit/housing problems a "witches brew in our economy" that's toxic to economic growth.
• He predicted economic growth would rise artificially on the back of the economic stimulus package in the third quarter of this year, but return to its slow- or no-growth pattern around Thanksgiving and Christmas. Stronger growth won't resume until late 2009.
• Tampa and Orlando will outperform the rest of the state in jobs growth, Snaith said. He called the Interstate 4 corridor the state's "horn of plenty." "South Florida is not going to be that driver of economic growth any more," he said.

Tampa's foreclosure picture remains fuzzy

Any way you slice it, foreclosures in the Tampa Bay area are up.

The region's 4,773 foreclosure cases in May were 29 percent higher than the foreclosure number a year earlier and 15 percent higher than the number in April. The firm RealtyTrac published the figures.

The highest rate of foreclosures was in Hernando County, followed Pasco, Hillsborough and Pinellas counties. Overall, one out of 271 households in the Tampa Bay area was in some stage of mortgage default. That's better than the state average of one foreclosure for every 228 households.

More than 1,100 of the 4,773 local foreclosure cases involved banks repossessing homes or announcing an impending auction or sale. Economists had predicted an uptick in May foreclosures based on the number of adjustable rate mortgages scheduled to reset last month.

The numbers are exaggerated since RealtyTrac reports multiple foreclosure filings against single properties. That leads to double counting.

Here's a chart with a county-by-county breakdown: Download mayrealtytrac.xls

Another sorry housing trend: "Bail and buy"

You're living in a house you paid $300,000 for in 2006 but it's now worth just $200,000 on the market. Your monthly payments are a burden and you want relief.

Lo and behold the same sized house as yours appears on the market down the street for a bargain price of $200,000. What will you do..what will you do?

A small number of people are ditching their old house - in some cases short selling them or letting them drift into foreclosure - only to snap up the less expensive model down the street.

Objection, your honor: Won't defaulting on one mortgage block you from applying for another?  Not necessarily. If you time it right you can do the switcheroo almost simultaneously, essentially getting to heaven before the devil knows your're dead.

I've also heard about people who sell their old house cheaply to a relative with little impact on their credit. Or they apply for the new loan under another family member's name.

Here's a Wall Street Journal story that takes on the phenomenon

While technically legal, the practice is ethically shady. But that's just my opinion. I speak as someone who's EXACT house is available across the street for $100,000 less than I paid two years ago.

Home Discovery founder starts new (ad)venture

Tampa's Steve Johnston, founder of Home Discovery of "2-percent-commission" fame, has launched a new business call ActiveAvenue.com.

It's a centralized Web site where neighbors can hold discussions and post information. After signing up for free, you're directed to your specific neighborhood.

It's now in its beta testing phase, going through a trial run to work out any bugs. About 1,500 have signed up so far. Johnston created the site with two partners from Home Discovery, Rich Heruska and Zavier Rodriguez .

Home Discovery is pretty much in the dumps. After reaching high orbit during the housing boom, Home Discovery's business has crashed back to earth during the housing slump.

The 2-percent-commission model made sense when homes were selling themselves. Johnston paid many of his people salaries instead of traditional commissions. But discount brokerages were less appealing when you needed more pyrotechnics to move your house.

Johnston made a belated attempt to introduce a full-service option, but the competition was too well established with the likes of Prudential, RE/Max, Keller-Williams and the like.

Centex, Pulte and KB Home promise to crack down on pollution

Three national builders active in the Tampa Bay area agreed to pay combined fines of $3.5-million for violating federal storm water run-off regulations.

The Environmental Protection Agency blamed Centex Homes, Pulte Homes and KB Home for releasing too much sediment into lakes and streams in 34 states. The government’s report pinpointed 271 sites in Florida that were potential violators, but admitted regulators had tested only a small sample of the housing developments in question.

The builders agreed to beef up compliance beyond regulatory requirements to keep an estimated 1.2-billion pounds of sediment out of the water. “Today’s settlements set a new bar for the home building industry,” the EPA’s Granta Nakayama said.

Erstwhile Trump Tower Tampa savior declared "psychotic"

Back in late 2006, the much-delayed Trump Tower Tampa announced a new partner in Orlando venture capital fund Mirabilis Ventures.

It was always an oddball partnership: Among his other business dealings, Mirabilis founder Frank Amodeo appeared to be running mercenaries in Africa. The "deal" had a shelf life of only a couple months before stories of Mirabilis' insolvency began to seep out.

Well, this lead paragraph from a story in today's Orlando Sentinal probably says all you need to know about Trump Tower's sometimes desperate pursuit of investors to launch the 52-story luxury condo project:

Orlando venture capitalist Frank L. Amodeo was planning to take over the world. But on Tuesday afternoon, he lost control of his own world and soon will be heading to a psychiatric center.

Read it all here

Meanwhile, Trump tower remains a figment of someone's imagination, no more than a patch of dirt on the Hillsborough River. New York tycoon Donald Trump agreed to license his name to the Tampa developers for a cut of the profits, but the two parties have been in mediation to resolve a lawsuit.

A humble enticement: Bring us home buyers, get free burger

Connerton "new town" development off U.S. 41 in Pasco County is a gorgeous subdivision. Rest assured I've got no financial stake in it, but I live nearby and take Sunday drives through there with my wife and whiney brood.

But this incentive Connerton is offering Realtors seems pretty unenticing. The flyer that went out to agents is headlined "Food and Gas Budget Stretched to the Limit?" and offers to pay for gas and lunch for agents who bring buyers to Connerton.

Connerton is treating Realtors to a meal at a Greek diner called Christo's that serves solid fare for about $7.99 a pop. And the gas reimbursement? Even a 40 mile round trip from Tampa would cost only about $5 to $8.

I don't know if I'd mobilize for a $15 freebie. Connerton builders should probably stress the obvious quality of their houses and highlight those $5,000 bonuses they gave agents a couple years ago.

Times are tough for agents with home sales off by more than 60 percent from their 2005 peak. Maybe a burger and Greek salad is a tiny consolation. 

Realtors rolling out major bus tour of foreclosure homes

They've done it in Vegas. They've done it in Chicago and L.A. Now we're getting our own version of the Big Foreclosure Bus Tour.

Exit Realty Advisors in Lithia has leased a fleet of 28- and 47-seater buses to carry scores of potential buyers though neighborhoods in and around St. Petersburg, New Tampa, Clearwater, New Port Richey, Wesley Chapel and Brandon/Riverview.

All the homes are bank owned, below market prices and, in the words of Realtor Ellen Cohen, need a little "TLC."

"Were targeting property that needs a little nip-tuck or a little lipstick,’’ Cohen told the St. Petersburg Times this morning.

They're rolling out on June 21, and again on June 28 and July 12. They'll have the keys to each house so you can pick them over. Realtors are trying to limit most tour houses to the $120,000 to $250,000 range. Exit Realty's number is 813-251-3948.

Cohen borrowed the bus tour idea from California and Las Vegas after getting repeated calls from buyers curious about how to tap into the supply of bargain-priced foreclosure homes in the Tampa area.

Realtors tout positive pending home sales report

The National Association of Realtors is touting a month-to-month improvement in "pending home sales," signed sales contracts that have yet to close.

NAR economist Lawrence Yun speculated that bargain hunters were behind the mini trend, but wasn't sure if most of these were end-user buyers who plan to live in the homes or flippers and speculators playing rooftop roulette again.

Yun suggests the housing market could be over-correcting: “Home sales are at about the same level as they were 10 years ago, yet the population has grown by 25 million people and we have over 10 million more jobs. The housing market has been under-performing by historical standards."

(How about everyone gorged at the feast from 2002 to 2006 so that fewer people are hungry for a couple years?)

Pending home sales are a decent gauge of buyer sentiment, but closings can be elusive with so many banks jittery from all their mortgage losses. I wrote last week that 41 percent of Florida-based banks are unprofitable, double the percentage of a year ago. And in general, the state's banks have WAY too little money in reserve to cover all their imploding home loans.

Banks aren't being stubborn, just sensible, though their tightening is doing the housing industry no favors.

The NAR's full press release is HERE

Drum roll: Hillsborough County homes sales kick up in May

Hillsborough County home sales rose in May for the first time in more than 2 years, according to the Greater Tampa Association of Realtors.

The increase in sales was slight - 1,316 this May versus 1,301 in May 2007 - but it's the first year-over-year improvement since January 2006.

The sales seemed to follow price concessions. Average sales prices were 8 percent lower this year than last. Sellers this May got 92 percent of their asking price compared to 95 percent of their asking price last year.

Here's the chart with details: Download tampamay.pdf

Many Florida economists and Realtors predict Tampa Bay area prices will continue dropping until 2009, keep pace with inflation a couple years thereafter, and resume appreciating after 2011.

Who will recover first? Pinellas, Hillsborough or Pasco?

The folks at Home Encounter LLC., a Tampa real estate brokerage, have released an interesting housing report for May, getting a jump by a couple weeks on the official Realtors statistics.

What leapt out was Home Encounter's prediction that various counties in the Tampa Bay area will begin their housing recoveries at different times.

Encounter wisely uses "average sales price per square foot" in rating the markets in each county. That helps iron out the statistical quirk in which a boost in sales of smaller homes masquerades as a large drop in median sales price.

It concludes that Pasco County, where homes are selling for about $97 per square foot, will hit price bottom by about October of this year.

Pinellas prices will flatten starting in November 2008. Hillsborough will play the laggard and not hit price bottom until March 2010. Or so says Home Encounter's analysis, which places a heavy emphasis on square footage price.

"Pasco people are virtually paying nothing for property right now," Home Encounter's Peter Murphy said Friday.

You can even break it down further within a county. Pasco's newer suburbs aren't caving on price like the older neighborhoods near New Port Richey are. Home Encounter provides a zip code breakdown that illustrates that point.

Here's some supporting charts and graphs: Download may_report.pdf

Someone ought to tell tax man that housing boom's over

A column from Friday's St. Petersburg Times:

When home sales were blazing three years ago, property values soared on the blast of hot air. These days, with sales as cool as Dick Cheney at an Osama bin Laden rally, values are thunking back to earth.

Unless you're Juan Lopez, resident of St. Petersburg's Allendale Terrace neighborhood.

At the height of the housing boom in December 2005, Lopez and his wife, Joyce, paid $250,000 for a rough-around-the-edges 904-square-foot house near 36th Avenue N and Seventh Street. It was built in 1941 and suffered from renter's rot. A new appraisal values the home at $237,000.

Try telling that to Pinellas County. The property appraiser's office values the house at nearly $300,000 and taxed the Lopezes $5,600. Here's the twist: The county admits his house is nearly worthless, but claims his land alone would sell for $300,000.

Granted, the Lopez home squats on the edge of an attractively leafy enclave of brick streets. But facts are stubborn things: Lopez paid $250,000 at market peak for the house and lot. Pinellas property values have since dipped 10 to 20 percent. And the county's acting as if Lopez sleeps atop Saudi oil.

Eager to save money with a baby on the way, Lopez investigated. He was stunned to learn the county raised his 2007 property values by cherry-picking two lot sales during white-hot 2005. Most aggravating is a sale on 25th Avenue, 11 blocks away in Crescent Park Heights.

That lot sold for $200,000, but it turned out to be a speculative purchase by a builder who went bankrupt. He built a luxury home there. It's in foreclosure. Yet this is what passes in Lopez's case for a "comparable sale."

A cursory look at the tax rolls suggests the problem goes well beyond Lopez. How does government justify muscular appraisals when the market's a 95-pound weakling?

To buy or not to buy: Renting less appealing in Tampa Bay area

The Tampa Bay area's two-year decline in home sales prices - about 25 percent off of peak by several calculations - is making renting look less appetizing.

Moody's Economy.com publishes what it calls its "rent ratio." What they do is take the price of a house, divide by 12 to represent the months of a year, and divide that number by the amount such a house rents for.

Our ratio here peaked at 21.4 in 2006. But by March 31, 2008, our ratio had fallen to 17.5. That put us in the middle of the pack among 46 large metro areas tracked by Moody's. As a rough calculation, a ratio over 20 should give you pause. It means cost of ownership far exceeds cost of renting.

Here's a concrete example. Let's take Tampa's peak median home price from 2006. It was $240,000. Divide it by 12 and you get 20,000. Now let's say you could rent the house for $1,000. That gives you a ratio of 20. Not so hot.

But Tampa's median price in April was about $175,000. Assume the house still rents for $1,000. Some quick division gives you a ratio of 14.58. Tampa's average ratio the past 15 years was 14.5. Guess what? In this case it's probably time to buy.

The rent-versus-own debate seems to be heating up this year. Last week a New York Times reporter, a self-confessed "evangelist for renting," confessed his conversion to home ownership. Here's one part of the column:

Most of the time, the decision whether to rent or buy should be based above all on life circumstances. Do you expect to move again in a couple years? Or is there a good chance that you’re ready to settle in — and stop worrying about real estate for a while?

The housing bubble, unfortunately, forced a reconsideration of this standard, because houses became so overvalued. But they’re slowly coming back to reality, which means that buying has again started to make sense for more people. Apparently, I’m one of them.

Read the whole NY Times story here.

Moody's enlisted its rent ratios to estimate how much home prices would have to fall in particular metro areas. In Tampa's case, our ratio had to adjust from a high of 21.4 to the historical average of 14.5. That's a price drop of 32 percent. We're already most of the way there.

Let's mark this whole exercise with a big "If". It makes sense to buy if home sellers drop prices to keep to them in line with the median. If the seller is one of the holdouts expecting a return to boom prices, renting looks a lot better.

Here's a chart showing Tampa's ratio in relation to other large cities.

Bad loans almost quadruple past year in Florida

"Past due and non-accrual loans" - a fancy name for loans people aren't paying back on time - have performed a high vault the past year.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, or FDIC, released this tidbit Wednesday: Florida banks reported bad loans rose from 0.7 percent of all loans in the first quarter of 2007 to 2.63 percent of all loans in the first quarter of 2008.

That's a 276 percent increase, almost a quadrupling of problem loans. By common consent, falling home prices and rising foreclosures are largely responsible for the turn of events.

A little perspective is in order. Though we're among the worst when it comes to growth in such loans, other states have more of them. Even Georgia banks reported that 3.18 percent of its loans are past due. Michigan's bad loans amounted to nearly 4 percent.

For full Florida chart with more information about employment and housing, click here.

Three month decline in Tampa home prices: 6.9 percent

Tampa Bay area home prices put in a pretty pathetic performance versus other large metros in the first quarter of this year.

According to First American Corp, which provides residential mortgage data to bankers and Wall Street, Tampa homes lost 6.9 percent of their value from Jan. to March 2008.

It was the sixth steepest drop among 34 heavily populated statistical areas monitored by First American. We moved up the list - 10th out of 34 statistical areas - when it came to our yearly home price drop of 16.46 percent.

I thought it was interesting to look at the short term trend for a change. We usually deal here with year-to-year price changes. Here's where we rank against other metro areas for first quarter home price drops:

1. Los Angeles: -7.41 percent
2. Cleveland: -7.38 percent
3. Oakland: -7.33 percent
4. Cape Coral/Fort Myers: -7.26 percent
5. Riverside, Cal.: -7.09 percent
6. Tampa-St. Pete: -6.9 percent

For the First American press release and full chart click here.

Record sale: Belleair mansion goes for $10.25-million

It's not the biggest house that ever sold in the Tampa Bay area, but it's the priciest.

The 12,935-square-foot "French-English country home" in Belleair with a lagoon swimming pool overlooking Clearwater Harbor sold last week for $10.25-million.

The seller was Bill McGill, chairman and president of Clearwater yacht and boat dealer MarineMax. the buyer was Dr. James St. Louis, founder of Tampa's Laser Spine Institute. The address is 144 Willadel Drive.

St. Louis will have an celebrity neighbor: Terry Bollea, also known as professional wrestler Hulk Hogan. Hogan's mansion is two doors down.

McGill built the house in 1991. It has a quarter-million-dollar lagoon-like swimming pool that overlooks Clearwater Harbor. It has five bedroom suites and six full and two half baths. The house was on the market for years for $16-million.

While the most expensive sale in the Tampa Bay area, it doesn't come close to being the biggest house ever sold. Corporate raider Paul Bilzerian's 28,263-square-foot pile in Tampa's Avila has that honor. It sold for $5.5-million in a bankruptcy sale in 2006.

We're not exactly Malibu here, but Tampa Bay area waterfront homes can pull down some serious marquee prices.