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New home construction hits record lows in Tampa
The loss of confidence born of the credit crisis hobbled Tampa Bay area builders at the end of 2008.
Local builders started only 932 homes in the last quarter of 2008. That's a record low going back a couple of decades.
Our region's not alone. Builders broke ground on 904,000 homes in 2008, the worst year for the industry since they started keeping records in 1959.
For 2008 as a whole, Tampa area builders started 35 percent fewer homes than in 2007 and a whopping 73 percent fewer than in 2006. Here are the hard numbers:
2008: 4,730
2007: 7,244
2006: 17,683
The local numbers comes courtesy of housing consultant Metrostudy. The company's main man in Tampa, Tony Polito, was unusually glum when we chatted today. He's not predicting housing demand to pick up until early 2010.
"It's going to take a while for the credit freeze to thaw out," he said. "We don't see much difference in 2009 than in 2008."
The only flicker of hope was that builders continue to work off their finished vacant inventory. About 2,617 new homes sit unoccupied, but that's an improvement from the peak inventory of 4,679 in 2007.
The land market's also looking ugly. The region had 30,640 developed vacant home sites at the end of 2008. Based on 2008's housing starts, that's enough lots to last more than 6 years. |
