Texas Mortgage Market Update – For the week of May 7, 2012 – Happily, it’s becoming easier to believe the housing market is turning around, although in fits and starts. For example, the Q1 Advanced GDP report showed that home building increased for the period at a 19% annual rate, its fourth consecutive quarterly gain. In line with this, several home builders have recently reported higher sales and orders. The National Association of Realtors (NAR) projects new home sales UP 31.6% for 2012. Continue reading →

Well, journalists had plenty of their kind of news to write about with last week’s housing reports. The bad stuff began with February Housing Starts dropping 22.5% to a level close to the April 2009 low, which was the lowest on record. Most of the drop was from multi-family starts, which are volatile on a monthly basis. Single-family starts were down 11.8%. New Building Permits fell 8.2% for February. This gauges activity a few months out, indicating starts in the Spring ought to be up a bit from now. Continue reading →

We should be especially careful to not erect barriers to our progress just because of a minor setback, like the one we had with last week’s Pending Home Sales. The National Association of Realtors (NAR) index of signed contracts on existing homes slipped in January for the second month in a row. But the drop wasn’t as bad as expected and, as the NAR’s chief economist said: “We should not expect the recovery to be in a straight upward path–it will zig-zag at times.” Continue reading →