Market Updates - News
7/13/2010-Fortune Magazine: "4 Reasons Why Texas Beats California in a recession." Texas powered through the global fiscal crisis, while The Golden State's economy is forecast to remain tarnished for some time. Here's why:
1. Diversity of jobs. Texas [and Houston] have a broader job base than California, so Texas has only 8% unemployment, while California suffers 12%+ unemployment.
2. It pays to be friendly to business owners. California's tax and regulatory structure is so difficult that the state ranked last in Chief Executive magazine's 2010 survey of the best places to conduct business, calling it "the Venezuela of North America." Texas, by contrast, ranked first. Texas has no personal income tax, personal capital gains tax, or corporate income tax.
3. Taxing sales instead of income distorts the economy less and allows for more flexibility. California's focus on progressively taxing income and profits instead of consumption exasperated the pain of California's state budget shortfalls. Unlike sales taxes, which contribute mightily to Texas's annual budget, taxes on income and capital are extremely volatile,
4. Power of the people can backfire. But that volatility and the deficits it creates could possibly be tackled if it wasn't for the empowerment of California's voters, who gained a major taste of victory in the Proposition 13 tax revolt back in 1978. Since then, California voters on both ends of the political spectrum have used their clout to approve scores of initiatives. Most importantly, from an economic point of view, voters have often chosen to impose tax and spending limits on the one hand, while enforcing minimum spending requirements on the other.
06/07/2010-Forbes Magazine: "Houston: Model City.Immigration, job growth and immigration put this Lone Star city ahead of New York and Boston" says Joel Kotkin. In the past decade, Houston's employment grew by 260,000. Compare to New York, which added only 96,000 jobs; Chicago area lost 258,000; San Francisco lost 217,000; Los Angeles lost 168,000; Boston lost 100,000.
"So what does Houston have that these other cities lack? Opportunity."
http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2010/0607/opinions-houston-immigration-job-growth-on-my-mind.html
05/01/2010-TAMU Real Estate Center: "Texas Leads United States in Current Economic recovery." The job loss rate in Texas decreased from 4% in April 2009 to 0.3% in April 2010, compared to the national job loss rate change from 5% to 1% over the same period.
http://recenter.tamu.edu/pdf/1862.pdf
04/08/2010-Clear Capital Reports Gains of 10.6% (annual) and 1.8% (quarterly) for Houston homes, while nationally, home prices dipped 3.9% for the quarter. This was the first quarterly drop nationwide in the past three quarters, but national home price appreciation remained positive for the year at 5.1%. The national REO saturation rate continued to rise to 28.9%, up 2.8% in March.
http://clearcapital.com/company/MarketReport.cfm?month=April&year=2010
03/26/2010-Wall Street Journal: Mortgage Plan to Cut Balances. "The White House will announce Friday an expansion of its foreclosure-prevention efforts to include reducing mortgage loan balances for some borrowers, a controversial step that policy makers have long resisted."
http://online.wsj.com/home-page
http://online.wsj.com/home-page
03/25/2010-Bank of America Introduces Earned Principal Forgiveness Among Enhancements to Its National Homeownership Retention Program. CALABASAS, Calif., March 24 /PRNewswire/ -- Bank of America announced it will look first at principal forgiveness – ahead of an interest rate reduction – when modifying certain subprime, Pay-Option and prime two-year hybrid mortgages qualifying for its National Homeownership Retention Program (NHRP). Several enhancements are being made to the program, including the introduction of an earned principal forgiveness approach to modifying mortgages that are severely underwater.
http://www.rbshomes.com/portal/administrator/index.php?option=com_content§ionid=-1&task=edit&cid[]=44
03/19/2010-Forbes: Houston Ranks Fourth in Cities where recession is easing. “There’s more to why Austin, Dallas, San Antonio and Houston are faring well than just the state’s energy industry. The tech, government and education industries supplement the oil state’s riches,” Forbes said. “As for housing, cities in Texas didn’t see the same run-up in home prices and rampant speculation that led to the spectacular bubble burst elsewhere in the country.” Like Austin and Dallas, Houston is expected to experience a three-year, 7.03 percent rise in jobs.
http://houston.bizjournals.com/houston/stories/2010/03/08/daily22.html
02/22/2010-Forbes: Houston Housing Market Ranks Third in the Nation. "Jobs stability equals housing stability. Strong industries have bolstered some of the cities on our list: The energy sector has kept jobs flowing into Texas oil town Houston, and that effect trickles into Dallas and Austin(which is also buoyed by technology jobs). A good job market means the housing outlook will stay strong. Houston home prices are expected to rise 1.2% by next year; it's one of only four of the markets we ranked where prices won't continue to slide, according to Moody's Economy.com."
http://realestate.yahoo.com/promo/americas-best-housing-markets
01/28/2010-Texas Leads US in High-Growth Cities. A new survey finds that the Lone Star state is leading in terms of growth rate and household income. Atascocita, TX, a mostly residential community 20 miles from Houston, gained more than 1,800 households in 2009, an 8% year-over-year increase, according to new data from Little Rock-based data firm Gadberry Group.
http://www.businessweek.com/lifestyle/content/jan2010/bw20100127_033961.htm
01/25/2010-Existing Home Sales Down, but Prices Rise. According to the National Association of Realtors (www.realtor.org), existing-home sales fell 16.7% in December 2009 from November, bu remain 15% above the volume of one year ago. The drop was driven by first-time buyers who rushed to complete deals during the months leading up to the original November deadline for the tax credit. However, prices rose from December 2008 and annual sales improved in 2009,
01/19/2010-Press Release-RBS Announces Ground-Breaking Turn-Key Real Estate investment Opportunities
Read the article.
01/15/2010 – HUD Suspends 90 Day Seasoning Requirement for FHA Loan Guarantees. HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan today announced a temporary policy that will expand access to FHA mortgage insurance and allow for the quick resale of foreclosed properties. With certain exceptions, FHA currently prohibits insuring a mortgage on a home owned by the seller for less than 90 days. This temporary waiver will give FHA borrowers access to a broader array of recently foreclosed properties. "This change in policy is temporary and will have very strict conditions and guidelines to assure that predatory practices are not allowed," Donovan said.
1/14/2010-RealtyTrac Year-end report shows record 2.8 million US properties with foreclosure filings in 2009. December 2009 marks tenth straight month of over 300,000 notices, with over 3.9 million foreclosure filings for the year.
Texas foreclosure rate is one per every 316 households, less than half of the national rate of one per every 136 households.
http://www.realtytrac.com/contentmanagement/pressrelease.aspx?channelid=9&accnt=0&itemid=8333
01/02/2010- Houston (including surrounding counties) recorded positive employment in the second half of 2009. This includes data provided by Costar for November and December. Houston’s employers have remained resilient – given the nation’s economic situation.
http://leasinghouston.org/2010/01/02/employment-how-does-houston-stack-up-see-this-interactive-map/