News / Features

FHA Reserves Back in Line with Federal Requirements

In another marker of the housing market’s recovery, the Federal Housing Administration announced last week that its reserves were back in line with federal requirements. The FHA stated that its insurance fund’s net worth at the end of September was

FHA Announces Changes to Condo Policies

Last Thursday, Federal Housing Administration Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary Ed Golding and National Association of Realtors President Chris Polychron announced changes to FHA condominium policies at the NAR national conference in San Diego. The changes, Golding explained, will change the FHA’s recertification process, owner-occupancy

6 Facts about the Homes Consumers Purchased in 2015

Single family? Condo? 2,000-plus square feet? What defined the homes consumers bought this year? For our latest story in our continuing series on NAR’s 2015 Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers, we’re taking a detailed look at the homes

As Apartment Building Falls, So Does the New Construction Marketplace

October provided yet more evidence of how integral multifamily building is to the current new construction economy October was a rough month for new construction, with housing starts falling 11 percent from September and 1.8 percent from Oct. 2014

CoreLogic: Healthy August Drop in Houston Cash Sales

The share of total residential real estate transactions carried out in all cash fell from 34.9 percent in Aug. 2014 to 31.7 percent this most recent August, according to a report from CoreLogic. Month-over-month, cash sales inched upward by

Marilyn Thompon Becomes President of Martha Turner Realty

Marilyn Thompson, the vice president of sales at Martha Turner Sotheby’s International Realty, will be the brokerage’s new president. Thompson graduated from Louisiana State University and taught for seven years in Houston public schools. She then began her career in real

Are America’s Large Homes Bad for Energy Efficiency?

Is our love for large homes nullifying the progress in energy efficiency? Thanks to new technological advances in water use, insulation, heating and cooling and household appliances, today’s homes are more energy efficient than ever before. Yet new research

Mortgage Customer Satisfaction Jumps in New Report

The mortgage process doesn’t often top the list of things people like to do, but as far as dealing with banks and moneymen go, customers are more approving of the mortgage process now than any other time in the

Disproportionately High Rents Spoil Homeownership Dream

Many want to own a house, but the finances are only feasible for an increasingly select few It is a truth universally acknowledged that the vast majority of renters in America aspire to homeownership. Indeed, according to a recent

NAHB: Builder Confidence Slips in November

After some very positive months, builder confidence took a step back in November Builder confidence in the market for newly constructed single-family homes slipped three points to 62 from October to November in the National Association of Home Builders/Wells Fargo

Houston’s Best Elementary Schools, High Schools and Districts Ranked

In WalletHub’s 2015 list of the best and worst school systems in America, Texas ranked among the bottom half of states, coming in at No. 27 overall – and No. 31 when only “quality” was considered. However, despite the

Demand for Crude Falls Alongside Price – Will Houston Hurt?

U.S. companies now hold 487 million barrels of oil, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration’s monthly report. The figure is significant because it represents the highest stock for early November in at least 80 years, and has major

5 Things You Need to Know About NAR’s Upstream Initiative

NAR and RPR push forward with Upstream initiative The National Association of Realtors and Realtors Property Resource have made an agreement with UpstreamRE LLC to develop a cross-industry platform for real estate data entry, collection and distribution for real

The 6 Characteristics of Homebuyers in 2015

What does the typical homebuyer look like in 2015? Earlier this week, we reported on first-time homebuyers, and how they are now at their lowest market share since 1987. That information came courtesy of the 2015 Profile of Home Buyers

Houston Named No. 4 Best City for Real Estate Investors

The investor-market dynamic has shifted since the boom and bust years. Returns are no longer astronomical and scooping up discounted foreclosures isn’t as easy as it once was, but the promise of profit has far from dried up, as

Houston’s Exurbs Attracting Buyers

Houston’s exurbs, with their relatively low cost of living, are becoming hubs for new residents, according to a new report by Joel Kotkin in Forbes. Kotkin notes that last year, almost 80 percent of the Houston metro area’s new homebuyers

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