Home Sales in Grand Hampton have mirrored the sales patterns we're seeing throughout Tampa Bay. Sales grew normally from January through March, then abruptly and unexpectedly started to decline. Home sales in Grand Hampton are down 44.4% since March which is really unusual since the busy home-buying season usually continues through June or July.

We're hoping that this trend reverses as the year winds on, but the ominous reality could be that the summer buying season was over before it even started. Not good news.

We also don't like the kinds of sales that we're continuing to see in Grand Hampton. 45% of all homes sold over the last 6 months were distressed - foreclosures or short sales. That's almost double the volume of distressed properties that sold in the 6 months prior.

But on the home-values side, things aren't quite so gloomy. The median sold price per sq.ft over the last 6 months is $96. Given that the median home sold is 2,768 sq.ft, the median sold price is $269,745. That number was helped by some high sales in December, January and May. Now you may have paid a lot more than $270,000 for your Grand Hampton dream-home, but $270,000 is actually improvement from where things have been - it shows some promising improvement on the home-value side of the equation.

Still, we're not seeing anything close to a recovery in Grand Hampton, and we won't as long as Banks and Short-Sellers continue to sell their homes for 20%+ below the sold prices of conventional homes. Grand Hampton would be well served to find a way to force Banks and Short Sellers to price their listings  appropriately.

Grand Hampton owners, do you want to find a way to stop the sliding home values in your neighborhood? Ask yourselves, is there a compelling reason why foreclosures and short sales are selling for 20% or more below conventional sales or do lenders just want to undercut the market? If you can answer this question - and if you can do something about it as a community - then you can help yourself into recovery. Recovery is within reach - each and every homeowner is part of the solution.