Archive for March, 2009

Last Sunday, Wes and Kalee Seymour loaded up their family and drove from Greenville to Dallas for the chance to buy their first home.

The Seymours and almost 200 others crowded into an airport hotel for an auction of about two dozen foreclosed houses.

“We came to another one but weren’t successful,” said Wes Seymour, who lives in an apartment with his wife of just over one year and their 8-month-old son. “We have been looking at auctions because you can get properties cheap.”

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NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. mortgage applications jumped last week as record low interest rates spurred a surge in demand for home refinancing loans, data from an industry group showed on Wednesday.

The Mortgage Bankers Association said its seasonally adjusted index of mortgage applications, which includes both purchase and refinance loans, increased 32.2 percent to 1,159.4 for the week ended March 20. Refinancing accounted for 78.5 percent of all applications.

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Check out our Fort Worth Texas Real Estate blog.

By MARCUS FUNK / The Dallas Morning NewsAUSTIN – The fate of the Texas Residential Construction Commission, an agency designed to regulate and handle complaints against homebuilders, lies in the hands of lawmakers who received thousands of dollars from Houston homebuilder Bob Perry, one of the agency’s top supporters.

The House Business and Industry Committee is trying to determine how to salvage the commission and turn it into an agency that can help consumers struggling with home construction problems. The Legislature’s Sunset Commission staff – which reviews state agencies and recommends how to beef them up – determined last year that the agency is so toothless and such a hindrance to aggrieved homeowners that it should be abolished.

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By STEVE BROWN / The Dallas Morning News

Most Texas home markets continued to eke out tiny increases in home prices in early 2009, according to a new report by First American CoreLogic.

Texas home prices were up by just less than 2 percent in the California-based housing analyst’s latest survey released Monday.

While Texas prices rose, nationwide home prices in January fell by 11.6 percent compared to a year ago to the lowest level in almost five years.

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By Timothy R. Homan

March 23 (Bloomberg) — Sales of previously owned homes in the U.S. unexpectedly increased in February as record foreclosures pushed down prices and lured first-time buyers into the market.

Purchases rose 5.1 percent to an annual rate of 4.72 million from 4.49 million in January, the National Association of Realtors said today in Washington. The median price slumped 15.5 percent from a year ago, the second-biggest drop on record, and distressed properties accounted for 45 percent of all sales.

Stocks, already up after the Obama administration unveiled details of a plan to buy up to $1 trillion in troubled assets, extended the rally after the report. The president’s proposal, combined with last week’s Federal Reserve initiative to commit as much as $1.1 trillion more to unclog credit markets, is raising speculation the global economic slump may soon ease.

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