Local builders laid foundations for 915 new homes this spring, a sluggish pace that nonetheless improved upon record-low housing construction from last winter.

Tampa Bay area housing starts had plunged to 708 in the first quarter of this year. Builders blamed the credit crisis and competition from foreclosure homes. The improvement in the second quarter offered encouragement that a housing bottom has arrived.

"It's not a significant upturn, but we're seeing positive signs," said Tony Polito, Tampa housing analyst for the firm Metrostudy.

Year over year, builders are still hurting. Local housing starts in the second quarter were 30 percent below the 1,312 starts in the second quarter of 2008.

Nationally, the new home market was in worse straits. Housing starts in June totaled a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 582,000, down 46 percent from a year earlier, but up 3.6 percent from May.

Few were prepared to call the end to the housing slump exacerbated by the worst unemployment in 30 years. In the Tampa Bay region, Polito still counted 2,150 finished, vacant new homes, a glut that stands in the way of a full recovery.

Local new home closings - homes in which people have moved in - still exceed new home starts. Polito said the reverse must be true before he signals a recovery. "When the market rebounds, starts run ahead of closings at some point," Polito said. "That's so the market can fill the backlog of demand for new homes."