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Texas Mortgage Market Update - For the week of April 30, 2012 - Those who continue to work the housing market are in fact seeing more opportunity. Thursday's Pending Home Sales rose in March to their highest level in almost two years when the looming expiration of the homebuyer tax credit was boosting sales. This National Association of Realtors (NAR) index is a measure of contracts signed for existing homes, which typically close a month or two out. It was UP a seasonally adjusted 4.1% for the month and UP a non-seasonally adjusted 10.8% from a year ago.

Texas Mortgage Market Update - For the week of April 23, 2012 - People say home building can't recover any time soon. Yet the signs continue to mount that a recovery is underway. Off 5.8% for March, Housing Starts are up 10.3% from a year ago, to a 654,000 unit annual rate. The monthly drop came from volatile multi-family starts, while single-family units were down only 0.2%. And the number of homes under construction was up for the seventh month in a row! Even Building Permits are up 30.1% versus a year ago. It's early in the home building recovery, but some are saying we could get to 1.5 million units by 2016.

Texas Mortgage Market Update - For the week of April 16, 2012 - When people tell you the housing market isn't showing many positive signs, here are some facts that may change their minds. As of January, the National Association of Realtors (NAR) reported the housing inventory of for-sale homes has fallen to its lowest level since March 2005 -- 2.3 million homes, about a six-month supply. Meanwhile, total home sales rose 13% in the last six months, according to another industry survey.

Texas Mortgage Market Update - For the week of April 9, 2012 - Hopefully, more people will be taking a shot at buying a home, with home ownership regaining its appeal as rents head higher. A real estate research firm reported average apartment rents UP 2.7% last year, while the national vacancy rate went below 5% for the first time since 2001. Increasing rents, plus very affordable home prices and near record low mortgage rates, have made home buying cheaper than renting in most areas, spurring on first-time buyers.

Texas Mortgage Market Update - For the week of April 2, 2012 - Last week's housing reports supported the fact there are great opportunities in today's real estate market, as long as you don't look at just part of the data and jump to conclusions. For example, February Pending Home Sales, measuring contracts on existing homes, were off 0.5% for the month. But wait a second, Pending Home Sales are now UP 13.9% over a year ago!

Texas Mortgage Market Update - For the week of March 26, 2012 - The renowned French fashion designer certainly would have appreciated that while February's Housing Starts were down 1.1% for the month, Building Permits bumped UP 5.1%, to their highest level since 2008. The housing recovery is full of opposites. In spite of that monthly dip, starts are UP almost 35% from a year ago. And before their February slip, single-family starts went up four months in a row to an 18-month high.

Texas Mortgage Market Update - For the week of March 19, 2012 - The Polish physicist and chemist, famous for her pioneering work on radioactivity, could have been describing the U.S. housing market. But we are making progress. Realtor.com reported that the U.S. median list price of homes they track was almost 7% higher in February than a year ago. The web site of the National Association of Realtors (NAR) also reported that the inventory of U.S. for-sale housing is 22% lower than a year ago. Additional progress was seen in the median age of inventory of homes on the site dropping almost 10%, year over year.

Texas Mortgage Market Update - For the week of March 5, 2012 - BULLETIN... HUD is set to increase FHA up-front mortgage insurance premiums April 1. This is a significant change -- please relay this to your buyers immediately: waiting will be costly. Call or email us for further information.

Texas Mortgage Market Update - For the week of February 27, 2012 - January New Home Sales dipped slightly, but only because the past month's sales were revised higher. Together, December and January new home sales were the best they've been in a year, up 3.5% in that time frame. The median sale price squeaked up $1,000 for the month, to $217,500. Best of all, the supply of new homes dropped to 5.6 months, the lowest in six years, with a record low 151,000 new homes for sale.

People's attitudes should surely be altered by new data from the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB). Their survey released on Thursday revealed four record highs hit by home building in 2011. The average size of new homes bumped up to a record 2,522 square feet, a record-high 42% of new homes had at least four bedrooms, 28% had at least three bathrooms and 30% included finished basements, all numbers up substantially over 2010. Countering this, there were a record low 429,000 single-family housing starts for the year.