TAMPA - If you're trying to sell your home, recent real estate news is likely getting you down.

There are more homes for sale than buyers, empty houses sit on the market for months, and some homes aren't selling. Tampa ranks second in the nation for falling prices, and economists say it will get worse.

But wait. Buried in all the depressing stats is a bit of overlooked good news: More homes in the Tampa Bay metro area are selling than in any other area in Florida.

During the first 10 months of the year, 20,810 existing homes sold in the metropolitan area of Tampa, St. Petersburg and Clearwater. The only other metro to come close was Orlando, at 14,901. Even more stunning: in October, real estate agents in the Tampa area sold 1,700 homes. In Miami, agents reported only 367 homes changed hands that month.

How can that be?

"The prices never got quite as high in Tampa as they did in Miami," said Jack McCabe, owner of McCabe Research Consulting in Deerfield Beach. "More homes are moving in Tampa because the prices are more affordable."

The Florida Association of Realtors tracks the state's sales of pre-owned homes and includes sales in Miami-Dade County as well as the city of Miami. Marla Martin, spokeswoman for the group, said Tampa's sales consistently beat Miami and other Florida areas.

Experts attribute Tampa's good fortune to a couple of factors:

•Tampa Bay homes are more affordable. Even though prices in the Bay area shot up 106 percent since January 2000, buyers' money still stretches farther in Tampa than in Miami. The median sales price in the Tampa metro area in October was $209,000. Miami's was $354,800.

•Tampa had a building boom in recent years that added thousands of single-family homes. The Miami area doesn't have much vacant land, and its recent boom consisted mostly of expensive condominiums.

•Tampa Bay's economy is strong, and local companies have expanded in recent years, bringing in new residents.

Downturn's Not Done

Could this mean Tampa Bay's real estate market is rebounding?

Not yet, said Sean Snaith, director of the Institute for Economic Competitiveness at the University of Central Florida. It does show, however, that the market is equalizing, he said.

"More transactions mean an area will move toward stabilization more quickly," said Snaith, whose institute studies the real estate market's effects on the economy. "But we still have a couple quarters and maybe the rest of 2008 before we see really good news."

Although more homes are selling in the Bay area, it's hard to ignore how long it's taking to make deals. October's 1,700 sales are still down 30 percent from the same month last year when 2,419 homes sold. In October 2005, 3,735 homes sold.

Real estate agent Nick Davis, of ReMax Premier Group in Wesley Chapel, said he is seeing an uptick in sales - as long as clients are willing to drop their asking prices. Part of the reason homes are taking longer to sell, he said, is that homeowners don't want to accept that homes aren't appreciating like they did during the housing boom.

"People have to be realistic," Davis said.

One of Davis' clients, C.B. Moore, sold two houses this year. Both sold for significantly less than Moore first thought. It took nearly a year and several price drops to find a buyer for his residence in Pasco County.

Moore and his wife started out asking $600,000 and trying to sell the home themselves. They ended up getting a real estate agent and selling the home about 90 days later for $490,000. The other home, which the Moores inherited, sold at $248,000, about $50,000 less than they hoped for.

"We would have liked to get more for the homes, but I think we got a fair price on both," Moore said.

Benefits From Price Drop

Some buyers have been sitting on the sidelines, waiting for prices to drop. Most months this year, prices have edged downward. This week, Standard & Poor's released its monthly Case-Shiller home price index that showed Tampa's price drop ranked second biggest in the nation in October, behind Miami.

Prices fell 11.8 percent in Tampa that month, compared with the same month in 2006. Prices in Miami fell 12.4 percent. Third quarter S&P figures were even worse for the Tampa metro area, which ranked first in the nation for falling prices.

As tough as it is on sellers, though, price drops are good for the overall real estate market and may be part of the reason why homes are selling better in the Bay area than in other Florida metro areas, McCabe said.

"Prices have a lot farther to fall in Miami," McCabe said. "I think this means Tampa will see the bottom of this market before South Florida does."

With Miami's median sales price at $354,800 and Tampa Bay's at $209,000, more buyers can afford homes in the Bay area, McCabe said. The Florida Association of Realtors is expected to release November's statistics next week, but experts predict they haven't changed much.

"In Miami, the median household income is about $52,000," McCabe said. "People can't afford these homes. The median income is about the same in Tampa, but more of those people can afford a $209,000 home."

David and Jeanine Blake find themselves on both sides of the selling fence.

The couple just bought a house in Belleair and feel they got a good deal because of the slow market. Now, though, they have to sell their old home and fear it will take a while. They worry, too, whether they'll get a price they can live with.

"We're prepared for it to take 90 to 120 days," David Blake said. "We have equity, but we're not going to give it away just because we have equity in the home."

Reporter Shannon Behnken can be reached at (813) 259-7804 or sbehnken@tampatrib.com.