Here's what $225,000 buys in bay area houses

Have a couple of hundred thousand to spend on real estate? Your choices are vast and varied.

After two years of price declines, the Times wanted to see what $225,000 would buy in the way of houses and condos in the bay area. It's a price within range of most two-income, middle-class families.

First, dispense with the notion that there is a typical bay area home. A home's location, condition and quality still loom large in pricing decisions. But the housing bust has introduced another variable: seller desperation.

Want saltwater access in Clearwater? Your $225,000 will buy you little more than a one-bedroom condo resembling a spacious hotel room.

Farther inland and 20 miles to the north, sellers in overbuilt, glut-ridden Pasco County are accepting $225,000 for 2,500 square feet in the well-appointed Connerton neighborhood.

But such a deal comes only with the assent of the bank. Such "short sale" properties require banks to forgive part of the seller's mortgage balance.

As you swing south toward the downtowns, stucco and shingle collects a premium. House hunters browsing the urban cores of St. Petersburg and Tampa have to settle for smallish bungalows with decades' worth of blemishes.