Austin Mortgage Market – For the week of December 21, 2009

We saw strong evidence last week that homebuilders are well on their way to recovery. Housing starts for November were UP 8.9%, to an annual rate of 574,000 units. Single-family starts were 35.0% higher than their January and February lows. The very volatile multi-units starts were UP 67.3% from the previous month's cyclical low. And get this -- starts were UP in every major region across the country!