TAMPA - Real estate agent Tony Rojas loves his job. But there's one thing that drives him crazy: unrealistic sellers who insist on asking buyers to pay boom-year sales prices despite profound drops in area home values.

So he has decided to walk away. In essence, he's firing them.

"We as Realtors have two choices," said Rojas, of ReMax Realty Associates in Tampa. "We can tell clients what they want to hear. Or we can tell them the truth: Values have dropped.

"Some clients get so mad when I tell them what their home is really worth that they won't even call me back. I have 40 to 50 listings. I have to get really serious about selling."

Parting ways with clients may not be that unusual in some professions, but real estate agents don't typically terminate relationships with customers. Now that the market has slowed dramatically, though, some Tampa Bay agents say it's too expensive to try to sell homes that are priced so high they're unlikely to attract buyers. If the client won't cut the price, more and more agents are cutting the listing.

Brenda Wade, of Signature Realty in Brandon, says she tries to avoid this uncomfortable situation by not "hiring" unreasonable clients in the first place.

"I'm investing money from the moment I take a listing," she said. "If the seller won't listen to me about the value, it's not worth my time. I don't want to put a 'for sale' sign in the yard. I want a 'sold' sign."

Prices in the Bay area have been falling since January 2007.

In November, the median price for existing, single-family homes in the metro area of Tampa, St. Petersburg and Clearwater hit $189,100, according to the most recent data available from the Florida Association of Realtors.

November's price showed a 15 percent drop from $223,400 during the same month in 2006. It also was the first time since April 2005 that the median price in the Bay area fell below $200,000.

The 15 percent drop is the heftiest seen in the Bay area during this housing downturn, but some area real estate agents say they're seeing even bigger price drops in some neighborhoods. Wade said she has seen some sellers lower prices by tens of thousands before making a deal.

Many homeowners who bought in mid-2006 when prices peaked in most Bay area neighborhoods or used home equity loans to extract cash out of the value of their homes now owe more than their home's current value.

"Some clients have to bring money to the table just to close," Wade said. "But that doesn't change what the price is now."

Nancy Riley, 2007 president of the Florida Association of Realtors, said she, too, has to be selective about what listings she accepts.

"My marketing budget has increased this past year, and it's not worth my time to advertise a home if I know it's not going to sell at that price," said Riley, a Realtor in Pinellas County.

Housing analysts predict home prices will continue to fall in the Bay area -- by as much as 10 percent more this year -- but will begin to rise gradually by late 2008 or early 2009.

So Rojas expects to be delivering the bad news for many more months.

"I think most clients want to hear the truth," he said. "The truth is in both of our best interests."

At least one of Rojas' clients appreciated his honesty, even though it hurt.

Sam Rodriguez bought a three-bedroom town home in Pasco County in May 2006. He paid $186,000 and now wants to sell and move to a bigger home. He expected to sell the Odessa home for about $200,000 and use the profit as a deposit on a larger home.

However, Rojas found two other, larger town homes in the neighborhood that are listed with lower asking prices. Rojas told Rodriguez he'd be lucky to get $170,000 and he might not get more than $150,000.

"I was shocked," Rodriguez said. "I didn't think it was right."

Now that he's thought about it and looked at Rojas' research, he's decided the real estate agent has saved him the trouble of marketing his home too high.

"I guess I'm going to stay here a little longer and watch what happens to the market."

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