Tampa Bay area housing starts plunge 90 percent from peak

Bay area builders poured foundations for just 697 homes from January to March — a 90 percent plunge from the peak three years ago. Stingy mortgage lending and competition from foreclosure homes drove new home starts in the Tampa Bay area in first three months of 2009 to their lowest level ever recorded. Builders and construction jobs tumbled as housing starts for Pinellas, Hillsborough, Pasco and Hernando counties continued their fall from 6,043 in the same quarter of 2006. Even measured against starts in the first three months of 2008, the new numbers are dismal. Builders started 1,239 homes from Jan. 1 to March 31 a year ago. This year's tally was 44 percent below that. The credit crunch in October, bought on by recklessly exuberant lending during the housing boom, deprived not only home buyers but home builders of crucial loans as 2009 began.

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