Real estate agents unsure about home prices

TAMPA, Fla. – March 23, 2010 – It’s the big question: Will home prices stabilize or drop?

About half of Florida’s real estate agents think prices are staying where they are over the next six months, according to a survey released Monday by California-based HomeGain, an online real estate company.

The state’s agents are slightly more pessimistic than agents in other states, said Louis Cammarosano, general manager of HomeGain.

“It was a little surprising given that Florida has been suffering for quite some time already,” Cammarosano said. “A lot of the pain in Florida has already worked its way through.”

Fifty percent of Florida agents said prices will stay the same, and 33 percent thought prices would decrease.

In the Tampa Bay area, home prices have plummeted more than 40 percent since 2006. That includes homes in the Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater areas.

In the past year, home prices generally have increased month to month and have hovered in the high $130s for the past several months. The average median price for the year was $137,500, according to Florida Realtors.

Nationally, most agents said they think home prices will stay the same or decrease over the next months.

“Many real estate professionals expressed concern over five factors that could potentially impact home prices adversely: rising interest rates, expiration of the homebuyer tax credit, persistent unemployment, continued foreclosures and the release of shadow inventory held by the banks,” Cammarosano said.

Texas agents were the most optimistic about the direction of home prices in their state. Those in Minnesota appear to be the least optimistic.

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