St. Joe Co., the state's top private landowner with 638,000 acres spread mostly across the Florida Panhandle, suggests the real estate market in its neck of the woods might have bottomed.

The company's task now is to "retrain" buyers that home purchases can't be deferred forever, chief executive Peter Rummell said Tuesday in announcing $32-million in profit for the first three months of the year.

"We have trained people to expect that prices are going to be lower tomorrow than today if they just wait," Rummell said. "So now people are going to have to learn that they've gotten to that point."

St. Joe's residential housing business, mainly Gulf Coast resort property, has been in free fall. Its closest project to the Tampa Bay area is the SevenShore condominium project in Bradenton. The residential side of the business brought in $30-million in early 2007 but only $9.8-million in early 2008. The company said "opportunistic value buyers" have replaced traditional home purchasers.

The company has weathered the housing slump by selling off backwoods parcels in the Panhandle it deems "nonstrategic." In the first quarter of this year, the company made $91-million on the sale of 57,435 acres to sportsmen, investors, conservationists and other buyers attracted to prices of $1,330 to $4,500 per acre.

"We expect these nonstrategic land sales will be the primary source of revenue for the near to intermediate term and will continue to be lumpy," chief financial officer Bill McCalmont said.

In a conference call Tuesday, Rummell said home and lot prices are "starting to firm" after deteriorating 20 to 30 percent from their peaks in August 2005. The inventory of homes for sale has stopped rising in St. Joe markets, hinting at a slow recovery.

"If we are in fact on the floor of the valley, the question is, 'How wide is the valley?'' ' Rummell asked.