We keep hearing from trade groups that lending standards remain high, and the data would seem to support that claim. It’s arguably the most common motif among housing trade groups today – lending standards remain high, and are limiting

We’ve been hearing for some time that rents are increasing, but new numbers from Zillow present the issue in a new light. Rising rents, like falling home prices, have been one of the prevailing narratives of the post-bubble housing

Deductions are a big part of homeownership; how common are they here in our local marketplace? If you know homeownership, you know the mortgage interest tax deduction, the great grandmaster of tax deductions in the U.S. Indeed, homeownership and

Though still low, builder confidence showed improvement in April, according to new NAHB numbers. Builder confidence recovered somewhat from March to April, inching up from 46 to 47, according to the latest Housing Market Index from the National Association

It’s been a verifiable roller coaster ride the last couple years when it comes to housing inventory, but are we finally out of the woods? Housing inventory in the Houston housing market continued its downward slope in March, falling

In the age of new urbanism, where does our metro area rank in terms of density and sprawl? “Density” and “sprawl” have become big buzzwords in housing the last couple of years, and for good reason. With gas prices,

The housing market has made considerable strides in the last 18 months, but all-cash sales are still in abundance. We’ll cut to the big stat – in Jan. 2014, the latest month for which data exists, 34.2 percent of

Sure, our area has some wonderful luxury housing markets, but in the grander scope of the market, how common are those million-dollar listings? We may hear about luxury real estate on a consistent basis, but luxury listings in the

March was another solid month of price increase in the for-sale and rental markets, both locally and nationally. Houston’s asking-price fortunes continued in March, according to the latest Price Monitor from Trulia, with asking prices in the area’s housing

Affordability is often crunched into a single number, but how does it differ across the spectrum of salaries? Houston’s housing market may be relatively affordable, but it only goes so far for someone earning a median salary. That was

Mortgage standards have been pretty tight since 2008, but new readings from the MBA show them to improving. On the surface, it looks pretty underwhelming. From February to March, the Mortgage Banker Association’s Mortgage Credit Availability Index (MCAI) increased

There are many uncertainties in the world, but here’s one thing we know for sure – progress has been made on the foreclosure front. Foreclosure inventory in the Houston-area housing market dropped 33 percent year-over-year in February, according to the

Our local market has made quite a bit of progress since 2011, but has it advanced too far? Housing bubble talk has grown strangely common the last few months, what with home prices nationally posting double-digit increases from where they were a year

The various generations differ in many ways, especially when it comes to the types of homes they ultimately buy. The last couple weeks, we’ve been combing through NAR’s latest Home Buyer and Seller Generational Trends Report, and have reported

In the last four years, the U.S. apartment vacancy rate has been cut in half; what’s happened at the local level? Reis, Inc. released its latest report on the nation’s rental markets yesterday, and it featured a stunning statistic:

What new home features are consumers desiring the most in 2014? And which ones do they consider essential? We all know how many variables go into a new home, and we all know that every consumer is unique in