News / Features

CoreLogic: Houston Home Price Slowdown a Good Thing

Since 2014, home prices have been in what CoreLogic Chief Economist Frank Nothaft recently described as a “sweet spot,” consecutively rising between 5 and 6 percent for 15 months. According to the research group’s newest report, home prices rose

Tight Inventories Push Down Pending Home Sales

Pending home sales in November declined for the third time in four months as buyers continue to battle both rising home prices and limited homes available for sale, according to the National Association of Realtors. The Pending Home Sales

Houston New Construction on Pace for Lukewarm Year

The latest analysis from Dodge Data provided an encouraging assessment of new construction in Houston According to the latest numbers from Dodge Data & Analytics, residential construction spending in the Houston housing market totaled $647 million in November. That total is 14

CFPB Takes Reassuring Tone Among TRID Complaints

Existing-home sales fell more than 10 percent in November, marking the slowest sales pace in 19 months and possibly serving as quantifiable proof of the effect TRID is having on the industry, according to National Association of Realtors Chief

Home Prices Stand Out In Texas

Home prices in Texas continued strengthening in October, as Dallas prices jumped 9.3 percent year-over-year, and 0.4 percent from September, according to the new Case-Shiller Home Price Indices from Standard & Poor’s. Although the Case-Shiller does not track Houston

Houston Housing Economist Expects Rocky 2016

2014 was a marquee year for Houston’s residential real estate market, with record-setting home sales and home prices. It has been a tough act to follow in 2015, a year that saw falling oil prices, growing obstacles for affordability

Homeownership Out of Reach for Many Houston Renters

Stagnant wages and high rents combine to push homeownership out of reach for thousands of Houston residents More than 625,000 renters in the Houston housing market struggle with the cost of housing, according to a new report from the Joint Center of Housing

Strong November New Homes Sales Could Make for Best Year Since 2007

New home sales are shaping up for their best year since 2007 Sales of new single-family homes in November rose 4.3 percent from October and 9.1 percent from Nov. 2014 to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 490,000, according

What Rising Rents and Declining Affordability Mean for Housing

Housing is on a precipice of affordability, according to a new study The Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University has offered some unflinching examinations of the nation’s housing market, particularly in terms of affordability and the growing

Is Young Adult Homeownership Ready for a Turnaround?

Data suggests the young adult homeownership rate is stabilizing After decades of decline, the 25-to-34-year-old homeownership rate has begun to level out, seeing no significant decline in 2014, according to Fannie Mae’s Housing Insights report. That trend, according to

CoreLogic: Houston Cash Levels Remain Low Despite Season

The number of all cash transactions peaked in Jan. 2011, accounting for over 46 percent of total home sales. In September of this year, cash sales represented a much smaller portion of total sales with a 32.5 percent share,

Mortgage Forgiveness Debt Act Extended To 2017

As part of a wider piece of tax legislation, Congress has voted to extended the Mortgage Forgiveness Debt Act to 2017. Originally passed in 2007, the act protects underwater homeowners from incurring tax bills on the debt forgiven during

HRC Evaluates Houston and Texas on LGBT Inclusion

Inclusion and acceptance for the LGBT community is on the rise, according to the Human Rights Campaign, which recently released its 2015 Municipal Equality Index. Rated on a 100-point scale, the LGBT rights group’s annual index assigns numerical grades

Houston Gets a New Construction Outlook for 2016

Speculation on the future of Houston’s construction market spans the spectrum, from unbridled optimism to doomsday nihilism. The reality will likely fall somewhere in the middle of that range, according to a 2016 construction market outlook from Atlanta-based CMD Group,

Is the American Middle Class Disappearing? 4 Stats to Consider

Where does America’s middle class stand financially? New analysis from the Pew Research Center explains The U.S. middle class, which has long defined the country’s economic prosperity, is no longer the majority of Americans. That eye-grabbing finding came courtesy of

November a Universally Strong Month for New Construction

It was a month of thanksgiving for the nation’s homebuilders November offered U.S. homebuilders many reasons to give thanks, with permits, starts and completions all in positive territory. According to the latest report from the U.S. Census Bureau, building

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