Home sales not quite as bad

After September's rancid home sales in the Tampa Bay area, October's home sales managed to smell a bit sweeter. Combined house and condominium sales in Pinellas, Pasco and Hillsborough counties totaled 1,969 last month, a drop of 28 percent from the 2,740 that sold in October 2006, Realtors said. While such a drop may not inspire choruses of Happy Days Are Here Again, it's an improvement over the 39 percent decline between September 2006 and September 2007. In fact, between September and October, both the number of houses sold in the bay area and the median selling price rose slightly. Inventory, defined as the number of homes for sale on the Multiple Listing Service, dropped about 300 in October, but remained stubbornly high at about 41,000 in the three counties. At the current sales rate it would take about 20 months to exhaust the supply of homes on the market. A healthy market has fewer than 10 months' worth of homes on the listings.

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