Times Staff Writer

In the no-brainer category, we have this from Zillow: Buyers and renters in the Tampa Bay area and other sweltering climes are willing to pay a premium for central air conditioning.

In the bay area, the typical home with A/C sells for 1.1 percent or $2,279 more than a non-air conditioned home. Renters pay 0.4 percent more or about $5 extra a month.

This, however, is hard to believe: Only 84 percent of homes sold in the Tampa Bay area in the past year had central A/C. That compared with 99 percent in Las Vegas and 97 percent in Phoenix. Meanwhile, folks in the Pacific Northwest with all that gloomy rain and fog are largely able to get along without A/C. Just 8.4 percent of homes in Seattle and 32 percent of homes in Portland, Ore. that sold in the last year were air conditioned.