'Flat is good' for home prices

Tampa area home prices continued to fall in November, but the monthly decline no longer is the nation's worst. Greater Tampa saw a 0.4 percent dip in home prices compared with the previous month and a 13.2 percent drop from the same month a year ago, according to the S&P/Case-Shiller Metro Area Home Price Indices. This comes after October's data showed a 1.6 percent monthly decline and a 15.2 percent yearly drop. October's monthly drop was the steepest among all the metro areas tracked by S&P/Case-Shiller. The nation overall did better than Tampa. Home prices rose for the sixth straight month in November. Karl Case, co-creator of the indexes, cites signs of stability that were in stark contrast to rapidly falling prices a year ago. "Flat is good," he said. "Tampa and Las Vegas are at their bottoms," said David Blitzer, head of the indexes board. "Other cities may be showing increases, but those cities were more boring during the boom. Tampa and Las Vegas both saw large run-ups in prices."

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