Make that Call!!

So I got an email from the Texas A&M Real Estate Center...as I was reading the newsletter, I noticed an article titled, " ON THE ROAD AGAIN . . . AND AGAIN . . . AND AGAIN." The article stated that, "Drivers in Dallas–Fort Worth–Arlington were stuck in traffic 140.7 million hours in 2007, ranking it fifth in the United States when it comes to time lost because of travel delays." Can you believe that?! 140.7 MILLION HOURS. With so much time spent in gridlock, this is a great time for you to be scrolling through your cell phone & calling past clients. Yup, do your FORD calls & stay in contact with your sphere. This practice is not something that will take up your time...instead, it is a way to make use of the useless time we spend in traffic. So instead of cutting off that car, make that call!

Please visit the link below for the full article.
http://recenter.tamu.edu/

Happy Birthday Earl!

Make an on-line slide show at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Family Circle magazine labels Rockwall a family-friendly city

10:35 PM CDT on Wednesday, July 1, 2009
By RICHARD ABSHIRE / The Dallas Morning News
rabshire@dallasnews.com

Rockwall is the best family town in Texas, one of the 10 best in America. Or so says the upcoming issue of Family Circle magazine.

In editions that will hit newsstands Tuesday, the magazine lists Rockwall and nine other U.S. cities as perfect places to call home, combining affordable housing, good neighbors, green spaces and exceptional public school systems.

The list isn't exactly scientific – it was compiled by magazine staffers and two outside firms using data in a handful of demographics categories. And the 10 cities aren't actually ranked, although Rockwall is listed first in the list.

None of that matters to Rockwall officials, who see the honor as a chance to spread word about the town to the magazine's 21 million readers.

"I'm thrilled," said Rockwall City Manager Julie Couch. "We actually knew we were in the running, so I'm thrilled that they kept us in there."

Couch said that the magazine focused heavily on schools and that she believed the Rockwall school district played a big role in winning the award.

Family Circle senior editor Paula Chin said the survey, in its third year, is one of the magazine's most popular features. She said the focus was on schools this year and only the highest-rated were considered.

"We're all about family-friendly towns," she said.

Mega Camp 2009

NAR's response to problems with appraisals

To: All REALTORS®
From: Charles McMillan, 2009 NAR President
Re: AppraisalsDear Fellow REALTOR®

During the past two months, we have heard from many of you regarding problems with appraisals that are causing deals to be delayed or canceled altogether. I assure you that we on the NAR Leadership Team are experiencing the same problems in our businesses. In fact, VP & Liaison to Committees Steve Brown recently shared his experiences in Ohio on the Voices of Real Estate

blog.http://narblog1.realtors.org/mvtype/president/2009/06/all_is_not_quiet_on_the_midwes.html

Let me update you on what NAR is doing to resolve these problems quickly.

On Monday, June 29th, I will be in New York to meet with the Deputy Attorney General and his staff who worked directly on the Home Valuation Code of Conduct. I plan to share our concerns, as well as your stories, and ask for their assistance in resolving any problems related to the HVCC.

On Tuesday, June 30th, I will travel to Washington, D.C., to meet with the Director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency to discuss ways we can work with Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and lenders to ensure that appraisals are accurate.

We will keep you posted on the outcome of these meetings. In the meantime, I encourage you to check out the following resources on Realtor.org for more information on the HVCC and how appraisal problems are impacting the real estate market:

Economists Podcasthttp://www.realtor.org/research/research/research_podcast062309?LID=RONav0021
HVCChttp://www.realtor.org/government_affairs/gapublic/gses_hvcc_announced

Appraisal Bloghttp://narblog1.realtors.org/mvtype/appraisalinsight/

On behalf of the entire Leadership Team and staff, I thank all of you who have shared your experiences and concerns with us. With your continued participation, I believe we will overcome this challenge in much the same way as we have conquered others – "United Toward Tomorrow."

TEXAS RANKS FIRST FOR BUSINESS

TEXAS (Austin Business Journal) – Texas stands out as the top state for business, according to Directorship magazine.

Texas "has a pro-business tax climate that ranks third, a low cost of living, a relatively solid economy and a litigation environment that ranks tenth on our list," the magazine reported. "Texas also ranks first in the number of Fortune 500 companies located there."

Major corporate relocations and expansions such as Comerica's move to Dallas and Caterpillar's new plant in Seguin were highlighted as reasons for Texas' ranking.

Directorship evaluated states' overall economies, tax climates, cost of living and education to determine rankings.

TEXAS STILL BUYER'S MARKET

TEXAS (Real Estate Center, The Herald-Zeitung) – Despite rising foreclosure rates in the United States (now nearly 32 percent), the rate in Texas is down 14 percent since last year.

Jim Gaines, research economist with the Real Estate Center at Texas A&M University, said the Texas housing market is doing very well compared with the rest of the nation.

"We're being compared to large, high-growth states like Florida, New York, California and Illinois, and our housing market is in much better shape. This is partly because about four or five years ago, we didn't have the big run-up in prices that many of those states had," Gaines said.

Texas also benefits from a lack of overbuilding, which often creates an excess of inventory to drive down home prices.

Affordable homes, low mortgage and interest rates, and first-time homebuyer tax credits also make this an ideal time to buy a home, according to Gaines.

TEXAS QUICK TO BOUNCE BACK FROM RECESSION, FORBES SAYS

WASHINGTON (Forbes) – Several Texas cities are poised for a quick recovery from the national recession, according to Forbes.

Austin–Round Rock ranked first on the magazine’s recent list of ten cities most likely to bounce back quickly.

Meanwhile, San Antonio ranked fifth, Dallas–Fort Worth–Arlington seventh and McAllen-Edinburg-Mission ninth.

To compile its list, Forbes looked at estimates from Moody's Economy.com of the projected gross domestic product of metropolitan areas across the United States, as well as unemployment figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics and home prices, incomes and affordability data from the National Association of Home Builders.

Forbes also put together a list of ten worst cities for recession recovery. No Texas cities made that list.

THIS ECONOMY WANTS TO RECOVER

In his recent Croesus Chronicles for Forbes, Robert Lenzner outlined several economic points:
- "The bear market ended March 9, and the end of the worst recession since the 1930s, or is it the mid 1970s, is plainly in sight."



- "About $120 billion has been pulled out of global market funds since mid-March;"



- 'Yet money market assets are still equal to 50% of the S&P 500 market cap...Since 1990, money market assets have averaged about 20% of the S&P 500 market cap. This is a huge potential buying power.


While no one is certain that a new bull market has begun, we can point to some telling signs:


"Stocks broke higher on June 1 even though the yield on 30-yeard Treasuries climbed back above 4.5%...This is what the long bond yielded in August of 2008. Just before the meltdown in credit markets during the fall of 2008."



"Credit markets are healing, as spreads have fallen considerably."



"Corporations are able to raise tens of billions in the short-term debt market."



"The yield curve, the difference in yield between short-term and long-term securities, usually widens in advance of an economic recovery, and it has done so."



"Stocks also rose spectacularly despite the bankruptcy of General Motors and the continuing loss of jobs in the automobile industry. Bad news doesn't seem to be rocking the market like it did a few months ago."



"Earnings yields on equities still remain comfortably above the yield on 10-year Treasuries and should have the ability to absorb higher interest rates driven by economic recovery."



'The US manufacturing institute for Supply Management index rose to 42.8 in May, which usually signals that gross domestic is expanding rather the faltering."



'Housing, the genesis of the crisis, is showing signs of stabilization and even amelioration. Pending sales were up 6.7% in April, even if prices are still in the tank.'



'Even automobile sales improved in May to an annualized 10 million vehicle level.'



'There has also been a mini-bull market going on in commodities that has been mightier than the one for stocks. This outperformance by commodities is another leading indicator of an economy about to turn the corner.'



And lastly, "Another factor that helps the Dow is the replacement of two stocks with no earning--General Motors and Citigroup--with Travelers and Cisco."


"Looks to Croesus that this market wants to rise, deflation or inflation both be damned!"

Forecasting the Floor

While experts run the gamut in their outlook for real estate, sound business
practices supercede futile attempts to time the market.

Are we there yet?
With the summer vacation season in full swing, most of us in real estate are
asking our own version of this signature refrain of the family road trip.
In our case, it’s a question of, ‘Have we hit the floor?’
When can we start looking forward to shrinking inventories, stable prices and an
upward trend in the number of transactions?

While much of the media is still charging ahead with dire forecasts for real estate,
a recent spate of experts are claiming that a housing-market recovery is imminent.
Even though this is the news that we’ve been waiting to hear, we need to take it
with a grain of salt. As always, the real story is much more complicated and lies
somewhere within the spectrum of the doom and gloom and the upbeat projections.
Many of you have recently asked me for my thoughts on a recent Wall Street
Journal commentary entitled, “The Housing Crisis is Over” by Cyril Moulle-Berteaux,
managing partner of Traxis Partners LP, a hedge fund firm based in New York. When I
read the claim in the article that, “It is very likely that April 2008 will mark the bottom of
the U.S. housing market. Yes, the housing market is bottoming right now,” I suspected
that there might be a need to look beneath the surface of his claims.

Noting that new home sales are down 63 percent and housing starts have fallen by
more than 50 percent from their July 2005 peak; and that housing starts in 2008 will hit
their lowest level ever, Moulle-Berteaux emphasized that the same factor that sparked the
housing decline is soon to reverse it: affordability.

He explained that “by 2005 and 2006, the average monthly income required to
service a conforming mortgage on the average home purchased had reached 25 percent.
For first-time homebuyers that figure had climbed to 37 percent.”

But since then, according to Moulle-Berteaux, “home prices have fallen 10
percent to 15 percent, while incomes have kept growing (albeit more slowly recently) and
interest rates have come down 70 basis points from their highs.” Moulle-Berteaux’s
conclusion: “… homes on average are back to being as affordable as during the best of
times in the 1990s – down to 19 percent of income for the average home buyer and 31
percent of income for the first-time home buyer.”


Affordability in March 2008, is actually at 19 percent, back to where it was in
early 2004, but one of the key factors affecting affordability in the current market is low
interest rates. If inflation increases, in the near future, interest rates could likely go up,
which could counter the current direction in affordability.

Another factor that Moulle-Berteaux points to as a sign of recovery is the recent
decline in new home inventories – from a high of 598,000 in July 2006, to 482,000 at the
end of March 2008. Conceding that the current new- home inventory is still at a 25-year
high, and equivalent to an 11- month supply, he argues that current levels are similar to
those seen at the end of previous housing market downturns in 1974, 1982 and 1991,
which in all three instances were followed by a slowing in home-price declines within the
next six months. As new home construction begins to undershoot new home sales, which
Moulle-Berteaux anticipates is soon to occur at a rate of 50,000 to 100,000 annually, he
contends that inventories will drop to 400,000 – or a seven month’s supply – by the end
of 2008.

While he makes a seemingly compelling argument, we should be careful not to
accept such analyses at face value. Moulle-Berteaux does not always paint the entire
picture and omits critical informa tion, such as the fact that existing home inventories –
which account for a far greater portion of the housing market – are at their highest levels
since September 1981.

That being said, Moulle-Berteaux is clearly not alone in his assertions that the
housing market is showing signs of a rebound. Among those noting positive trends is
Professor Karl Case of Wellesley College in Wellesley, Mass. Case looked at the past
three housing downturns in 1991, 1982 and 1975, and noticed that the market started to
clear when housing starts dropped below the 1 million mark – as they did in March of
2008.

At the same time, the National Association of REALTORS® sees signs of
recovery for reasons that include:
· Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have announced plans to increase funds available
for home loans.
· The use of FHA loans is on the rise.
· Pending home sales are on the rise in areas where affordability has increased.
In a further effort to stimulate the housing market, Fannie Mae announced that
starting June 1, 2008, it will accept down payments as low as 3 percent for single-family,
primary residences on loans it purchases.

But despite its initiatives to jumpstart real estate, Fannie Mae is not anticipating a
housing recovery to take hold until 2010. Addressing business journalists this Spring,
Daniel Mudd, president and chief executive of Fannie May said, “Forecasting the bottom
of the housing slump is a tricky business, with the many conflicting predictions by
economists as proof.” We couldn’t agree more.

Clearly, the housing market is a complicated business that does not rise and fall
based on one or two factors. And even though real estate is cyclical, we need to avoid the
expectation that prescribed patterns or trends are necessarily at play. The current
downturn is quite different from the housing recessions of 1991, 1982 and 1975 – due
primarily to the tightening of the credit markets following the fallout of the sub-prime
loan market, as well as the historically high rates of foreclosures. A striking similarity,
however, between the current housing market and previous downturns in the housing
cycle is the dramatic increase in oil prices.

It’s perfectly understandable to want to find the definitive forecast for residential
real estate and to seek a return to the heydays of housing, but we have little to gain in
latching on to any particular forecast or trying to time the market. We have everything to
gain, however, by managing expenses in order to survive, doing whatever it takes to
generate the leads that we need to thrive, seizing opportunities to build our share of the
current market, and emphasizing to clients who are trying to sort through many
conflicting messages that real estate is essentially a local business.

What’s happening within your local markets is all that’s relevant. You are our
local market’s real estate expert.