Tampa Bay home prices' rise predicted to continue

One of the hottest topics of last year was Tampa Bay's hot housing market. Here's what some experts say we can expect this year.

State of play: Zillow predicts home prices will increase in the Tampa area in 2023. Other markets that saw huge increases during the pandemic are now slowing down, but not us.

• The typical home value in the Tampa area is still up nearly 18% year over year, compared to 11% across the country.

Contributing factors: High population growth, rich buyers from other states, and geographic constraints that stop us from building enough to close the growing housing unit deficit.

• We're still feeling the housing aftershock of Hurricane Ian, too. It was a disruptive event that destroyed some of the housing stock and delayed construction.
• That exacerbates the housing deficit and pushes prices up, Zillow economist Orphe Divounguy told Axios.

Meanwhile, rising interest rates have been slowing demand, Abigail Hall Blanco, an economics professor at the University of Tampa, told Axios.

• "Higher interest rates mean that people can afford less of a mortgage and may depress the number of people looking to buy — or limit the houses they can afford," she said.

Yes, but: Inflation appears to have slowed from its peak, Divounguy said, meaning rents and eventually mortgage rates will start coming down. If that happens, affordability will stabilize.

• "The floor isn't going to come from under us," Divounguy said. "Americans are not going to find ourselves squeezed."

The bottom line: "With higher interest rates and potentially fewer buyers, we may expect houses to sit for longer, have fewer bids, and for buyers to have more leverage than they've had in the last two years," Hall Blanco said.