Judy Kay is the broker/owner of Rock Center Realty in Sugar Land.

Every week, we ask a Houston real estate professional for their thoughts on the top three stories from the week before.

This week, we talked with Judy Kay, the broker/owner of Rock Center Realty in Sugar Land. Kay has been in the real estate business for nine years and has been in the corporate world for 20 years. She made the decision to own her own business, and naturally became a broker and formed her own company.

Houston Agent (HA): Have you seen any signs that lending standards are going to ease up in 2013?

Judy Kay (JK): No, I haven’t. I still think it’s really rough. I think underwriting is exceptionally strict. I really wish it would happen, but I just don’t see it. I still see a lot of people who are qualified, who have the money to buy a house, who have the money in their savings or checking account. These are qualified people who are just putting money down, they just want to mortgage it, and underwriting is just really strict. They want so much information.

The only thing I will say is that there are a lot of hard money lenders that are coming out of the woodwork. I don’t know if that’s a sign that things are going to loosen up. But there are so many hard money lenders out there.

HA: What are your predictions overall for Houston’s real estate market this year?

JK: Fabulous. It started out with a bang in late February, and there’s a continual drive in prices of houses. Market prices are going to be at least 10 percent higher than last year, and I think appraisals are going to get better. We’re still going to have a couple of issues on appraisals, but I think overall, appraisals are catching up with rising prices. We’re not seeing as many foreclosures on the market at all. It’s looking very, very good. And I see the market prices increasing at least through next year. There’s still room to catch up to where it used to be, five years ago.

HA: What sorts of suggestions would you give Realtors about online marketing?

JK: Don’t do it unless you have assistance or unless you want cold leads. Online marketing is not really my priority. I think the only kind of online marketing that might work is the ones that are cheap and easy like Facebook. I think the other kinds of efforts are useless.

I’m not the typical Realtor. I don’t want to be a mega, mega Realtor. I don’t want a $100,000,000 business and I don’t want five fires underneath me. The marketing that I’m doing is old-fashioned, it’s one-on-one. When I get listings, I really, really work with the buyers and keep up with them.