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. Continue reading →

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. Continue reading →

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. Continue reading →