This is welcome news, courtesy of MIT Professor Simon Johnson, a notice that Sen. Ted Kaufman (Delaware) is set to lay down a few tenets that underscore the nation's financial situation. And he's spot on.

The Seattle Post PI.com is reporting that after clearing a Senate hurdle this week that the New Home Buyer Tax Credit of $8,000 is widely expected to pass congress this week to extend the credit into the spring season of 2010, which would be most welcome across the country. The program essentially creates a refundable $8,000 tax credit for qualified first-time home buyer tax credits (some limitations apply and "first" doesn't always mean "first"). This is very welcome news.

The inestimable Lucia Mutikani reports for Reuters that existing home sales rose to a 2-year high in September. These numbers are more meaningful than how, in two posts ago as I mentioned, new home builders have just been messing all over themselves. From Mutikani's article:

The National Association of Realtors said sales of existing homes jumped 9.4 percent in September to an annual rate of 5.57 million units, the highest level since July 2007. Financial markets had expected sales to rise to a 5.35 million unit pace...

I can't emphasize enough, especially now that the new home buyer tax credit should be extended into the spring this week in congress, that figures of existing home sales along with forward indicators of durable goods orders and business sentiment indicators (precursors to job growth) are the real numbers to watch. Don't look at the bad numbers arising from bad strategy from bad managers at bad builder corporations.

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.

So says GDP stats released this morning, even beating market expectation for value of overall U.S. national economic production in the 3rd quarter, July-September.  From Lucia Mutikani of Reuters:

The Commerce Department, in its first estimate of third-quarter gross domestic product on Thursday, said the economy grew at a 3.5 percent annual rate, the fastest pace since the third quarter of 2007...

What can we expect of this? Well we can expect some glad tidings and cheer, and that is most welcome. I think we can expect some less shallow breathing in boardrooms across the country and the world, and I think the belt buckle notches can hold steady for a while. This is progress.

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.

Austin is an odd bird in the Texas aviary of real estate, both commercial and residential. The Austin Business Journal is reporting that commercial and residential contracts combined are down almost 50% through August of this year over last year, which itself was not a stellar year.

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.

If you think I've been overly optimistic, please note this. It needs no commentary. From The Houston Chronicle Tuesday:

Toll Brothers, a publicly traded home building company, has earned the industry's top three awards, including America's Best Builder from the National Association of Home Builders, the National Housing Quality Award and Builder of the Year.

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