Boy I Wish I'd Kept My First House

I bought my very first house about 1978. It was a nice concrete block 3 bedroom, 2 bath house with a family room and a 2-car garge sitting on a lot that was about 100 feet wide and 125 feet deep. It was in a real nice neighborhood in northeast St. Petersburg, Florida. I later built a very large swimming pool that I designed myself. I lived there for about 16 years or so.

I wish I had that house today. As a long term investment, it would have been simply outstanding. According to the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight, since 1980 home prices in Florida appreciated by 388.92 percent. Who'd a thunk it?

Just for fun, I went through the MLS system and took a look at recent home sales in that old neighborhood. Sure enough, selling prices there are now in the $250,000 range with some houses going for a bit more. In 1978, I paid $38,000 for that house. That would have been a pretty darn good investment, don't you think? But of course, I sold it years ago.

This kind of appreciation is not unusual in real estate, but Florida has a pretty good track record for taking small investments in property and turning them into large sums of money with nothing more than the passage of time. For example, the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight reports that the Tampa Bay area ranked 36th in the nation in residential housing appreciation with one year house appreciation of 11.42 percent.

Prices increased 1.64 percent in the last three months of 2006, and were up a healthy 98.64 percent for the previous five years. Not too bad.

You can get more of these statistics at www.ofheo.gov. And if you'd like to know more about property in Tampa Bay, visit my website at www.TheStPeteRealEstateSite.com.