From today's St. Petersburg Times:

About 28 percent of homes in the Tampa Bay area sold at a loss the past year. And guess what? That's not too shabby.

According to Zillow.com, which keeps tabs on real estate in 163 markets, 30.2 percent of homes nationally sold for less than what the owner paid.

While some markets like Los Angeles (48 percent) and Las Vegas (65 percent) represented a disproportionate percentage of homes sold at a loss, even places like Washington, D.C., (38 percent) and Detroit (53 percent) came off worse than the Tampa Bay area.

The problem was less pronounced in places like Dallas (11 percent), Austin, Texas, (6 percent) and Little Rock, Ark. (15 percent).

Zillow said local home values dropped 16.6 percent in the year ending Sept. 30 to settle at $158,054.

Anyone for explanations why we haven't been so badly hit? I can think of two, one positive, one negative.

The upbeat explanation is that we've already cleared much of our investor-held deadwood. Alas, that doesn't make much sense considering that about a third of local sales are distressed homes either in or moving toward foreclosure.

The downbeat explanation is that we're less realistic about home prices than are sellers in Las Vegas and California. While sellers in those other markets slash prices to attract buyers, we harbor Taj Mahal-like illusions about our homes' real market value.

Of course, maybe Zillow's stats are just plain goofy.