Tallahassee hangs on

0 Comments | USA TODAY, September, 2008 | by Christine Dugas

Even though area home sales don't seem to have bottomed out yet, Tallahassee enjoys some advantages that should help it climb back up.

Unlike cities on Florida's coasts, it hasn't seen many house-flipping investors. And Tallahassee doesn't rely much on tourists who buy vacation homes only to unload them once economic times get tough.

"People that purchase homes in Tallahassee are what I call end-users," says Patti Ketcham, president of the Tallahassee Board of Realtors. "They are buying for their own use. They are buying to live there."

In part, that's because Tallahassee is both the state capital and home to Florida State University, Tallahassee Community College and Florida A&M University. Those stable sources of employment help insulate the...