Blog entries tagged Houston Area

Why Houston is Leading the Recovery

Nick Will — Sun, 11 Jul 2010 15:33:41 +0100

This chart tells the story of what I'm seeing through other economic indicators being released now and in recent weeks. This is a chart of the past 10 years of Producer Price Indices, the general economic cost index for companies that produce things. If a steel cookware company wants to sell more cookware, it cares a lot for example about the cost of steel. Same for a fast food compRead More...

The Complexity of Square Footage in Real Estate

Nick Will — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 17:38:49 +0100

Square footage is the most common driver of a comparables approach to market valuation of real estate. For example #SF x average comparable sale price per square foot = market value assessment. There are other methods of valuation, but this is most common. It's also laden with complexity.

The Houston MLS system not only requires a SFRead More...

Buffett: Housing Problems Are Largely Behind Us

Nick Will — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 13:03:13 +0100

Jonathan Stempel of Reuters wrote yesterday that Berkshire Hathaway's "oracle" Warren Buffett sees the housing crisis as mostly behind us, as do we at our firm. Writes Stempel:

[Buffett] said "residential housing problems should largely be behind us" within about a year as supply falls into line with demand, though "prices will remain far below 'bubble' levels."

This is the same observation we're hearing from non-celebrity analysts and industry colleagues on the ground. Read More...

White House May Ban Some Foreclosures

Nick Will — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 16:20:54 +0100

The inestimable Dawn Kopecki of Bloomberg posts this headline yesterday about some possible White House moves to ban some foreclosures -- at least for people under review for permanent loan modification. Right now, foreclosures are still allowed even while homeowners are under review for a loan modification program. Apparently the action under consideration at The White House would now allow foreclosure during that period. This would help. It would help homeowners acting in goodRead More...

FHA Needs Funds: You Read It Here 6 Weeks Ago

Nick Will — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 00:30:26 +0100

Okay so reading this blog is like getting the news 6 weeks early. Granted, I thought it would make the news at the end of September, and here it is in today's Times:

The Federal Housing Administration said Thursday that its cash reserves had dwindled significantly in the last year as housing prices slumped and many of its borrowers defaulted on their mortgages.

Still, government housing officials stressed that the agency, which insures loans made by private lenders, Read More...

New Home Sales Stats: Some Truth to Power

Nick Will — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 00:41:56 +0100

Okay so new home sales numbers weren't reported to be up last week. So? First of all, the housing market is local in nature. If all politics is local as Tip O'Neill said, then real estate and housing is darn near skin-tight.

Here's what Deutsche Bank said in the linked article above: "Overall, we think today's weak number supports our contention that based on waning government stimulus the housing recovery could end up being W-shaped..." What blather.

&nbsRead More...

Intel CEO: Higher Corp PC Sales in 2010

Nick Will — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 12:30:38 +0100

Reuters and their James Pethokoukis reports this morning from New Delhi that the CEO of gigantic PC chip maker Intel is forecasting significantly improved growth in corporate PC spending in 2010, which would be great news for the local north Houston tech market, including huge local PC and tech employer HP.

From the article:

"There is a very good chance corporate spending on PCs will improve significantly in 2010," Otellini told reporters at a news conference in the IndRead More...

School Zones & Tickets: A Few of My Favorite Things

Nick Will — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 12:07:34 +0100

Cars who pass busses with children aboard them, drivers who talk on cell phones through school speed zones, they deserve tickets and fines wrapped up in string - these are a few of my "favorite" things...

The Houston Chronicle this morning reports that State Troopers (these are state police who have jurisdiction over all roads in the states) will be riding on school buses a la federal air marshals I guess, ready to ensure drivers who pass stopped school buses with kids aboaRead More...

YMCA The Woodlands Creekside Park: Swiss Family Robinson

Nick Will — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 11:27:18 +0100

The Houston Chronicle reports of the spring opening of the 3rd YMCA of The Woodlands in the (still) new Village of Creekside Park, the first Village of The Woodlands on the south side of Spring Creek, which formally lands it in Harris County as opposed to the rest of The Woodlands in Montgomery County.

Despite originally being anchored by the uber-prestigious Fazio Carlton Woods Golf Course Community, some doubted whether a Village could fare well "south of the border." ThosRead More...

Buyers Gaining Interest: Web Stats

Nick Will — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 09:58:01 +0100

The website alexa.com tracks various statistics regarding web traffic across the Internet worldwide. Its methods are sometimes questioned - full disclosure - they use a large sample of people who download their "toolbar" is how I understand they get their sample. Nonetheless it's a commonly referenced source for Internet traffic statistics.

So today I pulled the recent traffic for HAR.com, the Houston Association of Realtors's public version of the Multiple Listing Service fRead More...