The punching bag that is the Tampa Bay area housing market has sprung about 40 percent of its stuffing.

That's the rough consensus of three major home price estimators: Zillow.com, the Case-Shiller home price index, and the Florida Association of Realtors.

Since home prices hit Himalayan heights in the summer of 2006, Zillow suggests an overall home devaluation of 38 percent.

Using different counting methods, Case-Shiller says our home values have tanked 39 percent. As of March, Realtors noted a 43 percent price retreat.

That suggests that people with homes worth $250,000 in June 2006 probably can't sell for much more than $150,000 today.

With such close conformity among the three tabulators, you'd assume everyone would accept their figures with confidence. You'd be wrong.

The counter-arguments usually go something like this: Zillow's statistics are a joke, Case-Shiller a self-interested pawn of Wall Street, and Realtors are the least reliable of all.

Let's start with Zillow. The California-based company compiles statistics for about 200 neighborhoods and ZIP codes in the Tampa Bay area. It generally pulls its data from county databases and works up an average from that.

While it's true that neighborhood rankings can be distorted, in some cases from a slimness of sample, they seem to even out when Zillow comes up with a regional average. Zillow says our typical home value is about $141,000. Note how close it is to the Realtors' median home sales price of about $136,000.

What's the beef with Case-Shiller? If you believe several of my readers, the index tinkers with home sales to placate speculators. Since Wall Street's betting on further home price declines, Case-Shiller is expected to deliver the supporting data.

But Case get kudos for accuracy since it measures repeat sales of individual homes. It tries to eliminate the bias that appears when an uptick in demand for smaller, cheaper homes makes it seem as if prices have fallen more than they really have.

That's probably why Tampa Bay area Realtors report the largest price decline at 43 percent. So much for the criticism that Realtors, intent on pasting a happy face on the market, have underestimated the slump.

Most Realtors you talk to are realists. A common complaint is that sellers - their customers - refuse to cut their asking prices to reflect the market's weakness.

Stagnant listings that entice no house hunters over the threshold benefit no one, least of all Realtors hungry for commissions.