Real Estate Blog

You may have read some of my previous posts predicting some of these trends here at Tampa Bay’s Inside Real Estate Journal or even at Hundred Acres. In today’s St. Petersburg Times, columnist Robert Trigaux lists the top ten housing trends for Tampa Bay. Here they are:

10. Florida will be the top destination of relocating boomer retirees, and will be followed by North Carolina, Nevada and Texas. Note that three of those four states have no state income tax. (North Carolina is the exception.). As boomer retirees arrive, watch for more building in the quieter Hernando and Citrus county housing markets.

9. The era of Tampa Bay as a super-low-cost housing mecca is fading. This year, the median price of an area home surpassed that of its counterpart in Atlanta. Tampa Bay’s median price - $168,000 - is $12,000 more than Atlanta’s median of $156,000. Still, it’s cheaper than San Francisco’s median: $625,000.

It’s also cheaper than Conneticut’s median of $800,000. I’m not even going to compare it to New York’s median home price.

8. Pasco and south Hillsborough-Manatee are not just momentary housing hot spots. They will continue to be so for years to come because that’s where the vacant land is. Of the 106,934 future lots tracked by Metrostudy, 28 percent are within the southwest and central Pasco markets, while 24.7 percent are within south Hillsborough.

7. While the Federal Reserve keeps raising short-term interest rates, mortgage rates are staying relatively low and stable. Look for the rate on a 30-year fixed mortgage to stick around 6 percent at year-end, and rise to about 6.5 percent for most of 2005.

6. “Cheap” housing is disappearing. Homes priced at $110,000 or less comprised 13 percent of the area market in 1999. Now they make up 2 percent. Even a “no-frills” townhome tops $120,000, Polito says. Homes priced at $300,000 or more made up 7 percent of the area market in 1999. Now they are almost 13 percent of the market.

5. Does this area face a future housing bubble? Unlikely, even though the Tampa Bay area’s median home prices rose 17.8 percent in the past year. Says Polito: “The housing supply in Florida is as tight as it has ever been.” But some southern housing markets - including Dallas, Atlanta, Charlotte, Raleigh, Houston and Austin - have an abundance of finished and vacant new homes that might mean prices will become softer in order to sell them. The Tampa Bay area has only a lean 0.7-month supply of finished vacant units.

4. Florida home building managed to grow in a third quarter marked by multiple hurricanes and negative advertising in the presidential campaign that hurt consumer confidence.

3. While the nation’s unemployment rate is 5.5 percent, Florida’s is 4.5 percent and the Tampa Bay area’s is 4 percent.

2. If you have money to invest, consider waterfront property in Florida. Predicts Polito: “It will remain a good investment for the next 15 to 20 years.”

Many investors buying waterfront pre-construction homes or condos have already realized this, often selling pre-construction homes or condos they have under contract as contract assignments, allowing them to attain a nice profit upon closing.

1. The Tampa Bay area will remain in the nation’s top 10 housing markets, and one of the top 10 growth markets for the next decade.

Bubble, what bubble? The bubble, as I have said many times before, is a myth for Florida’s Tampa Bay area. The most pressing concern for Tampa Bay will apparently be the scarcity of land and increased demand. This is one of the primary factors behind rising housing prices throughout Florida’s Tampa Bay area.

-John Mudd

“Mr. Real Estate”