TAMPA - Sharon Cardwell's family was one of the first to move into Brandon's new Kings Gate neighborhood in fall 2007.

The subdivision was abuzz with construction, the sales center was busy and Cardwell eagerly awaited new neighbors.

But to her dismay, only a handful more houses went up before the builder packed up and left.

"We were stunned," she said.

Cardwell lives in one of the Tampa Bay area's dozens of ghost subdivisions - neighborhoods with roads, streetlights and seas of empty, weed-choked home sites. Some homeowners live on streets by themselves, and others are tucked away in a completed section of an unfinished development.

During the downturn, some landowners desperately sold off lots. In recent months, builders who bought land cheaply have been finishing what others started. Model homes are popping up again, and although the pace has slowed, bulldozers are back to work. Meanwhile, builders scout lots, competing with each other to secure the best land in hopes of once again making a profit on new homes.

For Cardwell, that means more families are moving in. Her neighborhood eventually may become what she hoped it would when she moved there.

"I'm really happy," she said. "I was concerned we'd be a barren neighborhood forever, but it's really busy here. In the last six months we've gotten four new neighbors."

Kings Gate, now a community by Texas-based DR Horton, is a prime example of the new face of building in the Bay area.

Most builders aren't starting neighborhoods from the ground up as they did during the boom. There are plenty of half-empty communities with infrastructure in place, said Darren Saltzberg, vice president of sales and marketing for DR Horton.

Saltzberg's job is to locate unfinished neighborhoods with good lots. He has been busy; DR Horton has a reputation among real estate professionals as the most aggressive lot buyer in the Bay area.

"The thought was that if we buy the land low enough, we can build low enough to compete with the short sales and foreclosures," Saltzberg said. "We timed the market just right."

In the past 15 months, DR Horton has bought or put under contract 1,300 vacant home sites in Hillsborough, Sarasota, Manatee and Pasco counties. The builder's seven communities have grown to 28 in that time.

In neighborhoods such as Mira Lago in Ruskin, DR Horton is the only builder. During the downturn, many builders sold the lots to a developer. DR Horton later signed a contract to purchase the remaining lots, but is closing on them a few at a time, when there is homebuyer demand.

At Panther Trace in Riverview, multiple builders are working.

The most successful builders are those who bought lots near the trough of the housing crisis, said Marvin Rose of Rose Residential Reports, which tracks housing development. Builders who paid premium prices for lots during the boom years now can't afford to build homes on the land.

Some landowners were willing to let lots go for "next to nothing," Rose said. "Some paid less than $5,000 a lot. They can afford to really compete with prices and still make money."

A smart move among builders is to lock up lots by putting them under contract. That way, the lots won't be sold to the competition, but they can walk away if demand softens.

Deflated prices are such a lure that even builders who got rid of lots when the market crashed are now buying back property in other neighborhoods.

Standard Pacific Homes, for example, was one of the original builders in Mira Lago. It sold its lots there but since has purchased lots in subdivisions such as Tuscany in Tampa Palms and Tanglewood Preserve in Gibsonton.

"The good news is these communities are getting finished," said David Pelletz, Florida's president for Standard Pacific.

By the end of the summer, K. Hovnanian Homes will be building in 10 communities compared with four a year ago, said George Schulmeyer, the builder's Tampa division president. All of the neighborhoods already had homes.

K. Hovnanian bought 48 lots in Apollo Beach's Harbor Isles from luxury builder Toll Brothers. It's the builder's most successful community, Schulmeyer said.

Now that the federal home buyer tax credit has expired, demand is slowing again, and Schulmeyer said he expects sluggish sales for the rest of the year.

The 896 homes built during the second quarter was the best quarter locally since mid-2008, said Tony Polito of Houston-based Metrostudy.

Even though demand has improved, the Bay area's building industry won't get back to normal until the job market improves, Polito said.

In a healthy market, builders would construct 8,000 to 10,000 homes a year in the five-county area, Polito said. That compares with the 3,090 homes constructed during the past year in Hillsborough, Pasco, Pinellas, Hernando and Citrus counties. At that pace, it would take about nine years for builders to work through the inventory of lots, Polito said.

Tom Dowling says he can feel the slowdown in his Gibsonton neighborhood of Tanglewood Preserve. Shortly after he moved in three years ago, the builder moved out, leaving 32 finished homes in the 366-lot neighborhood. Property values fell, and common areas were neglected. Now, though, Standard Pacific and Suarez Homes are building, and Dowling is excited to see more than two dozen new homes.

In 2007, Dowling paid $230,000 for his home. A similar new 2,300-square-foot home is on the market for $177,900. Even though his value has decreased, he thinks his investment will improve with other homes nearby.

In his area of the subdivision, about half the finished homes have sold, he said.

"I'm happy something is finally happening here," Dowling said. "But it will take a while before the construction reaches us back here."

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