In much of the Tampa Bay area, real estate is on life support.

More than 40,000 properties are for sale across Pinellas, Hillsborough and Pasco counties, thanks to risky loans, overbuilding and all manner of irrational exuberance.

But a tiny subset of the real estate market remains vibrant: multimillion-dollar homes.

We're not talking McMansions shoehorned into quarter-acre lots. We're talking palatial waterfront estates, jaw-dropping homes with three-story marble entrances, elegant game parlors, aquarium-sized pools and servants' quarters bigger than the average Colonial. They are a market within a market, sort of like Baghdad's "Green Zone" protected from the ravages outside.

For insight into the ultra-high-end housing market, the St. Petersburg Times identified 10 of the most expensive houses for sale in the bay area and talked to the real estate agents selling them. Most said the high-end market is largely unchanged from a year or two ago.

A key reason: The wealthy tend to be insulated from broader market forces.

These captains of industry are not suffering from wage stagnation as is the average worker. And because those buyers typically pay cash, the tightening mortgage market has no effect on their home buying.

Nor is there a serious glut of high-end homes. During the recent housing boom, developers seeking to cash in built condo towers and reams of less expensive homes. But the spigot cannot be turned on and off so easily with palaces. Constructing a 10,000-square-foot waterfront fortress to the exacting tastes of multimillionaires is not something one does hastily.

Still, there are more high-end homes for sale than meet the eye.

Some sellers decline to be included in the public Multiple Listing Service, opting instead for a private listing marketed by word of mouth among the bay area's elite.

Tampa agent Toni Everett said she expects to land two such private listings soon, each priced above $7-million.

Everett said a third set of clients, health insurance entrepreneurs John and Brandie Puls of Tampa, recently pulled their $8.9-million home off the public market to avoid being featured in this article.

High-end homes are not immune to pricing pressures. One of the 10 properties described here, 424 Park St. N in St. Petersburg, is listed at $8.5-million, down from its original price of nearly $10-million.

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