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Hernando Today

House Of Cards

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Michael D. Bates

Published: February 2, 2008

Hernando County Property Appraiser Alvin Mazourek said he is still crunching numbers on upcoming property assessments.

He admits he does not have a crystal ball, but based on discussions with the building department and the decline in the issuance of housing permits, it looks bleak.

"Right now, it doesn't look like there is going to be any relief," Mazourek said. "We don't know how much values have come down. It will be reflected in the 2008 tax bills."

But right now, Mazourek estimates a 10-12 percent decrease in property values for the 2008 tax rolls, based on 2007 home sales.

Mazourek's department determines property assessments as of Jan. 1 of each year, based on sales from the prior year.

According to RealtyTrac, Florida was second only to California in the number of foreclosure filings in 2007. The Sunshine State recorded 279,325 filings, a 124 percent increase from 2006.

Thousands of Hernando County homeowners, unable to keep up with monthly house payments, are joining the ranks.

Hernando County recorded 1,927 foreclosure filings in 2007, up 60 percent from the previous year when there were 768 filed cases.

Last year's foreclosure rate is 70 percent higher than 2005.

This year is still young and already there were 256 foreclosures in January in Hernando County.

By the numbers

Hernando County shattered all records in 2005 when the dollar amount for single-family homes hit $1.2 billion, a 51 percent increase from a year earlier.

There were 6,808 homes sold in 2005 with an average sales price hitting an unprecedented $182,509.

The housing boom continued in 2006, even though it wasn't quite as brisk as the year before.

According to the property appraiser's office, the dollar value of single-family homes in 2006 was $1 billion, a 13 percent decrease from 2005. The number of homes sold in 2006 was 5,047, down 26 percent from the previous year.

However, the average sales price for single-family homes hit a record $213,442 in 2006, a 17 percent jump from the year before.

In 2007, the market deflated.

The dollar value of single-family homes in 2007 was $395 million, down 63 percent from 2006. The county recorded 2,129 home sales in 2007, down 58 percent. And the average sales price for single-family homes in 2007 was $185,713, down 13 percent from 2006.

In the span of only one year, the average price of a home in Hernando County sold for almost $30,000 less in 2007 than in 2006.

Things are bad all over

The news is little better throughout the rest of the state. By the end of 2007, 130,241 homes sold statewide, a decrease of 29 percent from homes sold in 2006, according to the Florida Association of Realtors (FAR).

"What we experienced during the five-year boom cycle (2001-2005) was not a normal housing market," said 2008 FAR President Chuck Bonfiglio. "It was a market like we have never seen before.

"Existing-home median prices went up statewide over the past five years by some 60 percent; prices only declined in 2007 from 2006 by 5 percent," Bonfiglio said. "People are still experiencing a sizable return on their investment if they have owned their home over the past six years."

Nationwide, existing-home sales declined in December following several months of stable activity, with total sales in 2007 at the fifth highest on record, according to the National Association of Realtors.

For all of 2007 there were 5,652,000 existing-home sales, the fifth highest year on record. However, the total was 12.8 percent below the 6,478,000 transactions recorded in 2006, FAR said.

No relief expected

Building Department Director Grant Tolbert was forced to lay off another 10 employees this week because of the downturn in the construction industry, which now has started affecting the commercial sector.

Tolbert said he doesn't expect the housing market to rebound until 2009 or possibly 2010.

During the peak year of 2006, Tolbert's department had 86 employees. He's down to 47.

"You just don't keep people employed if you don't have enough to keep them busy," Tolbert said.

He didn't rule out the possibility of future staff cuts.

"Next month, two months from now, three months from now, I don't know," he said. It depends on what the construction industry does."

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