Tampa Bay eighth most searched city on Realtor.com

I hope this portends an uptick in home sales. Here's a list of the most searched cities last week on Realtor.com:

1. Las Vegas, NV
2. San Antonio, TX
3. Phoenix, AZ
4. Orlando
5. Chicago, IL
6. Henderson, NV
7. Miami
8. Tampa
9. San Diego, CA
10. Austin, TX

These are all large metro area with a plethora of home listings. So it's probably no big deal. I'd only be shocked if Anchorage or Boise showed up in the top 10. But eighth place sure beats 20th.

Comments

[Dan]

Interesting...with the exception of Chicago, the top ten are all have warm climates. Makes me hopeful that people want to move out of the cold weather but can't, due to the economy.

[Fuzzy Bear]

Based on the top 10 cities listed, seven of those cities are in the bubble states. It appears to me that the consumer is watching the impact on home prices.

I would also agree that the impact of the economy and tight credit markets are holding the consumer back from making that move to the warmer climate areas. Having recently been up north as of last week, I most certainly understand their desire to move as it was very cold from our standpoint.

[Team Gray]

This survey wasn't about number of hits--it was about which cities had the largest percentage increase of online searches between August 2008 and August 2009. Tampa Bay's increase was an impressive 61.2%, which put it at number eight. Boise, Idaho's increase was 34% year-over-year in July, but alas, we had an increase of only 5% August to August. Oh, well. Bestplaces.net just named Boise the safest large city in America. We'll take it. :)

[justwondering]

Investors looking for places to buy in areas that will rebound higher then others per past history?

To me when the northern markets start opening up the southern will follow creating a feeding spike.

[Tino]

Even though I recently purchased a home, I continue to enjoy looking at the Tampa Bay trainwrecks on realtor.com.

Units in condo communities that were selling for $100-150k two years ago are now ASKING $20-40k. This means that you could probably get one for $10-20k, just to stop some poor investor's relentless bloodbath...

Awesome.

[Tino]

Not to give anyone free publicity, but units in these two communities were selling for the mid-100's as recently as two or three years ago. Now they are asking less than $40k.

MLS# 7432787
MLS# 7429340

Throw in the costs of property taxes, condo fees, insurance and special assessments, and CASH buyers (no financing) have probably lost about 150% of their investment and are still bleeding to death. Buyers who financed might have lost ten times their original investment.

Every month:
- $50 inside-of-unit insurance
- $300 maintenance fees
- $200 property taxes
- $2,500 loss of market value
- any required special assessments

Awesome!

[Dan]

I'm confused...is the above poster finding amusement in an investor's gamble on market conditions (which, as we all know, turned out not to be in the investor's favor) or is he finding amusement in a homeowner watching his property value diminish through no fault of his own? The first is almost understandable as investors must always live with the chance they have taken, the latter...well, if there is humor to find in that scenario, I don't see it.