Tampa home sales give a little back in August

After three straight months of year-over-year sales gains, the Tampa area housing market took a little dip in August.

The Greater Tampa Association of Realtors reported home sales of 1,327 in August, 4 percent below the 1,384 sales in August 2007.

Average sales prices continued to slide both month over month and year over year. The typical home price stood at $213,002 in August. A year earlier homes sold for an average of $262,629. That's a drop of 19 percent.

The last time homes sold for so little was February 2005.

August seemed to snip off a budding recovery. Sales were up year to year in May, June and July. But I wouldn't draw too many conclusions from 57 fewer sales. Hey, it was an awfully rainy August ...

An informative chart here: Download gtaraug.pdf

Comments

[Fuzzy Bear]

The last time homes sold for so little was February 2005.

Home prices in 2005 were highly inflated due to the housing bubble and had greatly exceeded the long term growth rate. Housing prices in 2005 had exceeded the affordability range of most consumers by this period in 2005.

Housing prices are still out of wack for the Tampa bay area and the consumers incomes!

[Steve Simon]

Interest rates have dropped again;
get out your Hewlet Packard 12-C!
(oh I forgot, I know how to use that not you); Just kidding Jimmy, I always liked you best...
What it means anyway is that the last 4 weeks of drop (maybe .6 of a percent) has created a little more affordability.
The dreaded front end and back end ratios:
"piti/monthly gross" and "piti and other debt service obligations/ monthly gross"
are going to be a little easier jump over...
You will see things like this make the bottom look jagged rather than a flatline.
However rest assured you're not going to see a firm bottom and a steady rise off it (not here anyway) until the glut of proerties has been worked through; that time is at least 18 months away. Default figure of 9 out of a 100 was and is staggering. The results will be many more foreclosures, and a closing of the gap that currently exists between the two types of sellers:
those that must sell
those that want to sell
The gap between these two types will be smaller and smaller, thereby adding to the available property pool.
Its going to be up and down for a while...
Just my thoughts :)

[Fuzzy Bear]

Default figure of 9 out of a 100 was and is staggering.

You have nailed it Steve. It appears to me the default number is growing and as you mentioned foreclosures will increase. Add in the growing unemployment for the Tampa Bay region and the picture does not look good. So buckle up as we are on our way for an interesting ride.

[Tino]

A theme to revisit in today's SPT story titled "Leases help span slow market": Elizabeth Bettendorf, who writes puff pieces that advertise her friends' homes for sale and businesses, does a story on high-end homes that are being leased until the market recovers.

This is a direct contradiction to the stance of local and national realtor associations, which do not accept the fact that these homes are hidden inventory that is not included in the MLS. They also do not recognize the pipeline of homes in foreclosure, and are constantly amazed when these impact sales prices.

Also, a great quote from a realtor in the story: "the house is seeing a lot of interest". That is one of my favorite realtor lines!

My other favorite: "this house (priced at twice the comps) is fairly priced."

[Fuzzy Bear]

This is a direct contradiction to the stance of local and national realtor associations, which do not accept the fact that these homes are hidden inventory that is not included in the MLS.

I have seen a large amount of flipper homes removed from MLS because they did not sell that are now being rented for less than their monthly payments.

As one realtor told me the other day, don't try and sell the property now because we need to reduce inventory on the MLS to make it look like the market is improving.

[Tino]

I can believe that - in the past month I have seen a large number of vacant homes that were on the MLS expiring/withdrawn.

Not only does it reset the days-on-market to zero (I guess these sellers don't think that buyers can look at the listing history), it makes the market look better than it is.

I continue to track vacant/previously for sale homes, and the "hidden inventory" continues to increase rather markedly.