January single family home sales in Pasco County were up by 2.2% over this time last year. But home sales throughout Tampa Bay were up by an average of 13.9% in January, driven in part by the super-low prices of short sales and foreclosures in the region. So when Pasco sales were up by such a small percentage when compared with other Bay Area counties, there had to be some communities that didn't sell too well in January.

Meadow Pointe, you're one of those communities. You bucked the increasing sales trend and turned out exactly the same number of single family home sales in January 2011 as you did in January 2010. 176 homes sold in Meadowpoint over the last 12 months. The median size was a 1,956 sq/ft 3 bed/2 bath home and the median sale price was $152,000

But there's a good reason why your homes sales are falling while home sales everywhere else are increasing. Median Meadow Pointe sale prices last year were up in every month but one. You finished out January with a median price that was 3.4% above last year's prices. That's terrific considering that the average January home price decline in Pasco was 21.6%.

So it makes sense that when your prices are rising, your volume of sales falls, especially when prospective buyers can go to another community and get a steal.

Part of the reason that home prices are on the rise in your community is because there is a smaller difference between the sale price of distressed sales (short sales and foreclosures) and conventional sales in Meadow Pointe than elsewhere in Pasco. The median Meadow Point distressed sale in January sold for $134,000 – an 11% discount below the median conventional sale. Compare that to the rest of Pasco county where the median distressed sale sells for a 16% discount, and you have some of the reason why prices aren't falling in Meadow Pointe.

The rest of the reason lies in sales volume – 58% of all sales in Pasco were distressed while only 29% of sales in Meadow Pointe fell into this category. So when you have fewer homes selling at cheaper prices, and a growing proportion of conventional sales, that's good for the health of a community.

Meadow Pointe was a case-study in the Tampa Bay housing bust. It fell fast and it fell hard. But we could find that it recovers quicker than other communities in the Bay area too, given that home owners defaulted early and Banks moved to foreclose quickly.

Meadow Point residents, if you can convince your fellow homeowners to hang in there – to not short sell their homes or default on their mortgages – then you may be one of the first communities in the Bay Area to emerge from the housing crisis. But you can't separate yourselves entirely from Pasco County. Pasco was hit hard, and we need to see the "Meadow Pointe Effect" happening all over the county before we'll ring the recovery bell.