Tampa tops nation in housing price increases

Fixing Tampa's housing crisis

Calls for solutions to fix Tampa’s housing crisis inched forward Thursday after the city council approved steps toward a tenants' advocacy office and looking into a landlord ordinance.

TAMPA, Fla. - After nearly three years of Phoenix leading the nation in the most-rapid growth in housing prices, it has been topped by the Tampa area, an analysis released Tuesday showed.

The Tampa area had a 34.8 percent price increase in March when compared to a year earlier, according to the S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller U.S. National Home Price NSA Index.

Tampa was followed by the Phoenix area at 32.4 percent and the Miami area at 32 percent.

Those three metropolitan areas have repeatedly led the nation in price rises in recent months, but Phoenix had been on top.

"Those of us who have been anticipating a deceleration in the growth rate of U.S. home prices will have to wait at least a month longer," Craig J. Lazzara, managing director at S&P Dow Jones Indices, said in a prepared statement.

The year-over-year gain for 20 metropolitan markets was 20.6 percent.

Tampa and Miami were the only Florida markets included in the analysis.