Investors and second-home buyers took much of the blame for bringing down the Tampa Bay housing market.

To a certain extent that's justified. Subsidized by cheap-money mortgages, too few of these nontraditional buyers had "skin in the game," as Realtors like to say these days.

When housing values started to tank in 2007, thousands ran for the hills - of Tennessee and elsewhere.

So it was a bit startling to hear calls this week to reintroduce second-home buyers and investors to our foreclosure-wasted neighborhoods. The loudest call came from economist Mark Zandi, among the sharpest critics of the housing bubble.

If we're to mop up thousands of foreclosure homes - many of them failed investment purchases - we'll have to bring back the money men. In other words, to stretch an immunization analogy, we need a small dose of investor to prevent the full-fledged investor fallout.

That brings us to Tim Tracey and his modest Treasure Island bungalow. Tracey and his wife are Minnesotans with roots among Pinellas County's pioneer families.

Classic second-home purchasers, the couple decamp several times a year to a 550-square-foot, 61-year-old box on the Intracoastal Waterway.

Box isn't stretching the truth. While it does have pleasantly subtropical saltwater views, air conditioning pours from a window unit. A propane tank fuels the water heater and apartment-sized stove.

Tracey pays $6,300 a year in property taxes and isn't happy about it. He's already acceded to Florida's punitive two-tiered taxing system that offers tax breaks only to homesteaded property.

What sticks in his craw is that the county appraises his house for $62,000 more than his next-door neighbor's. To justify the higher appraisal, Pinellas reached as far away as Clearwater in a search for supposedly comparable properties.

In 2001, before the big runup in housing prices, Tracey and his neighbor paid similar taxes on homes the county said were both worth $135,000.

It made sense. The neighbor's house is 40 percent bigger. Tracey's lot is 16 percent bigger. Since the land is worth a lot more than the rickety structures atop it, the discrepancies iron out.

But this year, after the housing inflation and subsequent deflation, the property appraiser decided Tracey's home is worth $344,000 and his neighbor's is worth $282,000. Huh?

Armed with a fat appraisal he had commissioned privately, Tracey challenged his valuation Thursday before the Pinellas value adjustment board. Tracey's appraiser priced the 1948 house at $265,000. The board hasn't announced a decision yet. Tracey is one of thousands of property owners who have challenged their valuations in the past two years.

Florida economists, ever eager to smooth out taxing inequities that harm competitiveness, despise our state's overly elaborate system of property taxation. But let's admit it. We full-time residents feel comfortable passing the buck to investors and part-timers.

That's all fine and good. Just don't expect them to bail us out of this mess.

James Thorner can be reached at jthorner@sptimes.com or (813) 226-3313.