TAMPA - It's the question everyone wants to know: will home prices stabilize or drop?

About half of Florida's real estate agents think prices are staying where they are over the next six months, according to a survey released today by Calif.-based HomeGain, an online real estate company.

The state's agents are slightly more pessimistic than agents in other states, said Louis Cammarosano, general manager of HomeGain.

"It was a little surprising given that Florida has been suffering for quite some time already," Cammarosano said. "A lot of the pain in Florida has already worked its way through."

Fifty-percent of Florida agents said home prices will stay the same, and 33 percent thought prices would decrease.

In Tampa Bay, area home prices have plummeted more than 40 percent since the housing boom peaked in 2006. That includes homes in the Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater area.

In the past year, home prices generally have increased month-to-month and have hovered in the high $130s for the past several months. The average median price for the year was $137,500, according Florida Realtors.

The median price of single-family existing homes in the Bay area fell to $125,600 in January, the most recent month for which data has been released. That's an 11 percent drop from December but a 3 percent increase from a year ago when the median price was $122,400.

Nationally, most agents said they think home prices will stay the same or decrease over the next months.

"Many real estate professionals expressed concern over five factors that could potentially impact home prices adversely: rising interest rates, expiration of the home buyer tax credit, persistent unemployment, continued foreclosures and the release of shadow inventory held by the banks," Cammarosano said.

Texas agents were the most optimistic about the direction of home prices in their state. Those in Minnesota appear to be the least optimistic.

Reporter Shannon Behnken can be reached at (813) 259-7804.