You'd think that after eight months of home sale increases and five months of home price stability, the Tampa Bay housing market wouldn't still whimper like a 95-pound weakling.
One of the causes of our real estate anemia is out-of-staters. Our feeder markets — the cities up North that supply the bulk of our domestic migration — just aren't feeding.
Maybe housing markets in places like Butte, Mont., can tout self-sufficiency. Cowboy Bill buys a house from Buffalo Bob, and everyone's happy.
But we're Florida, Land of Last Chances, Mickey's Mouse Hole, South America North, Grand Central Terminal for retirees. We're a nobody if people stop moving here, or at least rent a condo a few months each winter.
We've been so numbed from our own housing pain that we've missed much of the suffering up north.
Autoworker retirees have long helped keep Florida Realtors employed, particularly in west Pasco County. But look what's happening in Detroit, Motor City USA.
If you thought the city's average home price was terrible in May 2008 — and it was at $20,514 — take a peek at this May's $11,533. People paid that much for a three-bedroom, two-bath in 1968.
Is it unfair to single out such an economic basket case as Detroit? Then let's head over to Ann Arbor, home of the University of Michigan. Home prices have plunged 30 percent the past year in that pleasant college town. The average is now $151,783.
Residents of northeast Ohio, rarely immune to Florida's charms, can't sell their homes for much more than $102,000. That wouldn't buy you much more than a box around Tampa, where prices average $165,000.
You can still make a mint selling your home in Queens, N.Y., another favorite locale from which Tampa Bay attracts new residents. But in the past year alone, the average Queens home has plunged in price from $555,000 to $435,000.
And what about Chicago and environs, another market that's long maintained a pipeline to West Florida? Same old story. Chicago home prices have crashed to earth at $225,000, down a third from a year earlier.
Thank goodness for foreigners. A recent check of home sales around Tampa Bay revealed buyers from Germany, Great Britain and Canada. Germany's unemployment rate is about 9 percent, Britain's a bit over 7 percent. That sounded high until Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater joblessness soared above 10 percent.
But we'll still rely on the upper Midwest and Northeast to hawk — or maybe hock — our homes. Maybe buying a Ford made in Michigan isn't just your patriotic duty but ultimately an investment in yourself.
James Thorner can be reached at jthorner@sptimes.com or (813) 226-3313. Comment his blog at blogs.tampabay.com/realestate.
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