Justin Howeth's Blog
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Could a $15,000 tax credit for home buyers?
Sen. Johnny Isakson, of Georgia; and Sen. Chris Dodd (sponser) are going to be introducing a bill soon that would increase the now $8,000 tax credit to $15,000. The proposed credit would have income restrictions, unlike the $8,000 credit; which phases individuals out at $75,000/year and couples at $150,000/year. Keep watch and keep checking back [...]
Another new Web poll.
I have just created another new web poll about mortgage rates. Mortgage rates have gone up dramatically in the last few weeks. Today, according to bankrate.com 30 year fixed rates are at 5.27%. Last week rates were at 4.98%. Things are starting to get back to “normal”. Click Here for the web poll.
New Web Poll
Should Realtors be forced to disclose listing and expiration dates on the MLS? That is the question in my latest poll. The rest of my polls can be found at howethproperties.com. Should Realtors be forced to disclose listing and expiration dates on the MLS?
Houston Home Prices going UP!!!
The local MLS board came out with April sales numbers today and they are looking much better than before. Both Average and median home prices reached the highest levels since September 2008, and the sales volume was the second highest for 2009. Although the season of the year does account for some of this up-ticking, [...]
U.S. Median House Price Drops
According to the Wall Street Journal the median house price dropped 14% in the first quater of 2009 according to NAR. Nar has stated that in the first quater of 2009 half of the homes that were sold were sold to first-time homebuyers, and many of them bought foreclosed homes and that is what dropped [...]
Existing home sales up in February
This is amazing news coming from NAR. In February the number of homes sold rose 5.1% to a seasonally adjusted 4.72 Million units, compared to 4.49M annualized units. The bulk of the increase in sales is due to the increase of distressed homes. The Nation Wide average home price is $165,400 down 15.5% from one year [...]
Texas Economy
Texas Topped the job growth market last year. Five Texas cities were ranked in the top ten with three of them securing the top three spots. Houston added 57,300 jobs in 2008, Dallas-Ft. Worth was next with 43,300 and then San Antonio with 14,900. Austin came in fifth with 9,600 jobs created and El Paso came [...]
Texas Economy still Great.
The Texas economy is still cooling but we continue to create jobs in Texas. From December 2007- December 2008 the U.S. economy saw 2.8 million people loose their jobs, while Texas gained just over 150,000 jobs over that same time period. The state’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate rose from 4.2 percent in December 2007 to 6 percent in [...]
December Sales 2008
In Houston, sales continued to be sluggish. Overall property sales were down 16% last month when compared to December 2007 and sales of single-family homes were down 13.5% according to new monthly data from the Houston Association of Realtors. These figures show a dramatic improvement from November, when both the total property and single-family sales volume [...]
Year Ending 2008
HAR.com reports that sales in the Houston, Texas area were down 33.7% in November. It will probably be another month before we have December’s numbers out. Sales of single-family homes were down 31.7%. Rental property demand is up, with single-family rental demand up 16% and townhouse/condo demand up 2.8%. The Texas economy is still fairing much [...]
