It's hard to be buoyant about a 19.8 percent decline in home values the past year, but if Tampa has been bruised by the housing downturn, other Sun Belt markets have been mauled.

Tampa's annual home value decline was 19.8 percent as of October, according to the S&P Case Shiller home price index. That placed us 8th worst on the 20-city index.

Most depreciated was Phoenix, where home values crashed 32.7 percent. Las Vegas continued to suffer disproportionately with a 31.7 percent housing plunge. Miami remains Florida's basket case, registering a 29-percent decline.

Let's place Tampa's decline in perspective. The 20-city average home price decline was 18 percent. So we're a bit worse than average. Markets previously immune to the downturn - think Seattle and Portland - are now feeling the pinch.

According to Case-Shiller, our home values have returned to September 2004 levels and stand 30.5 percent below the peak reached in July 2006.

In other words, our overall home depreciation since the climax of the housing boom has yet to match the decline registered in one year by the likes of Phoenix and Las Vegas.

That may be small comfort - we're comparing ourselves to cities built atop deserts after all - but things could be worse.