Tampa Housing Market: The Comeback Kid?
Things are bad. And getting worse. But can the Tampa Bay housing market rise from the wreckage and become known as Florida’s Comeback Kid?
You can bet the house on it, a notable economist says.
Lawrence Yun, senior for the National Association of Realtors, was appointed last month as the top economic spokesman for the Washington-based Realtors group.
He succeeded David Lereah, who was discredited in large part after maintaining rosy outlooks amid an increasingly troubled housing market and promoting his 2005 book.
In a slide show Thursday to the Greater Tampa Association of Realtors, Yun delivered a message of short-term pain leading to long-term gain.
“Five years from now you will be very happy you’re in this business and located in Tampa,” Yun said to about 75 real estate agents.
In Yun’s view, rising incomes and declining Florida home prices ought to have stimulated sales this year were it not for housing bubble scares in the media.
In one worst-case scenario, an economist suggested the gap between incomes and home prices would depress housing values 40 percent.
Yun scoffed at the idea.
The real measure of affordability, he said citing a formula, is Florida mortgage obligation relative to income.
He clicked a slide showing Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater hovering around the national average. Much of California isn’t so lucky, nor are high-priced Miami and Naples.
“It’s very, very manageable. Nothing alarming in this region,” Yun said.
Yun based his housing projections on a list of economic trends: speculators leaving the market, strong job creation, baby boomers buying second homes and reform of Florida’s property tax and insurance systems.
On that last item, Yun foresees a “sonic boom,” should the Legislature succeed in bringing insurance premiums back to earth.
Coming off the boom that ended in late 2005, the Florida housing market’s biggest problem is a record-high inventory of homes for sale.
In Tampa, listings hold about 40,000 houses and condos, quadruple the amount on the market number seen just two years ago.
Ever optimistic, Yun suggested a way out.
Thousands of homes will peel off into the rental market, while others drop off the charts as owners wait out the slump.
“In a job-growth area, people can hold onto the house without being desperate,” he said.
If membership rolls are any indication, real estate agents also hope to weather rough times in this sector of the Florida mortgage loan market.
The Tampa Association of Realtors reported membership ticking up a bit to 9,200. Carlos Fuentes, the association’s elected president, urged members to spread the gospel according to Yun.
“You need to know the facts,” Fuentes said. “You need to know how to present them as well.”
SOURCE: St. Petersburg Times
