Republican Convention Puts Tampa Bay on Real Estate Radar

As Republican candidate Mitt Romney accepted his nomination for President, the international spotlight was on Tampa Bay and it was showcased like never before.

For the real estate sector the convention meant good news. The 2012 Republican National Convention brought not only thousands of staunch party supporters, but also a good number of property scouters who took out time to look at the flourishing property market.

“We have had some [GOP] buyers in the marketplace,” Charles Richardson, senior regional vice-president at Coldwell Banker in Tampa, told The Real Deal. “I don’t know about those that have turned into buyers, but obviously the end result is people are getting to see the Tampa Bay area — and that’s always positive for us.”

A majority of these potential buyers looked for homes between $1 million and $3 million.

“I have seen interest,” he said. “People have been calling about homes in the area, and they’ve had an interest in that particular price range,” Frank Malowany, broker-associate at Tampa Bay’s Malowany Group told The Real Deal.

Similar to the national scene, Tampa Bay’s market too is on a recovery mode with home prices and sales escalating. Compared to last year, the local sales jumped 12 percent from 2,580 to 2,889 in July. The average home sales price went up by 8.3 percent to $130,000 from $120,000, the Tampa Bay Times reported.

However, low inventory is a hurdle holding back the Tampa Bay realty sector. The paper reported that in June, Tampa Bay had only a five month's supply of houses, townhouses and condos for sale.

One of the reasons why there is a drop in inventory, Barbara Jordan of the Greater Tampa Association of Realtors told ABC Action News, is because many sellers are currently upside-down in their mortgages. “Their houses are worth less than their mortgages," or their homes are tied up in the foreclosure process.