People still want to own homes!!

Just read a great article that puts the housing market in the correct light.  Home owners and renters want to own homes!!  The problem lies with underwriters and banks who have overreacted to the foreclosures by making it nearly impossible to buy a home if you are starting your own business or are self employed.  Here is the article.  Let me know if you agree:

By Amilda Dymi

A seemingly optimistic survey showing 68% of all respondents, or seven out of 10 homeowners and six out of 10 renters, agree it is a good or very good time to buy a house does not mean much for the housing market recovery—at least for the present.

Stringent mortgage qualifying criteria and downpayment affordability are on the way as much as job security and employment opportunities.
“Homeownership is not dead,” nor going to be largely replaced by renting as claimed by some, said Kent Colton, senior fellow at the Joint Center for Housing Studies at Harvard University, during a webcast about the most recent findings from the Hanley Wood “Housing 360” survey.
The survey found 89% of owners (of which 62% were first-time homeowners) and 59% of renters consider homeownership important to the American family. Also, 87% of owners and 73% of renters see homeownership as important to the economy overall.
Despite the current market conditions one in five homeowners and one in three renters say they want to buy a home over the next two years, so there is a gap between the present and that future. The housing market is still uncertain, he said. There is “no sense of urgency” to change current housing arrangements among the 3,005 homeowners and renters surveyed. “It will be a slow recovery.”
It is not yet clear what will be the trigger to new demand and exactly when, he argued.
The most optimistic conclusion—if findings are analyzed within the wider housing market context—is an expectation to see current downward pressure factors such as double-up housing and higher renting demand eventually open the way for new, reasonably affordable housing demand in the longer term.
Between 2007 and 2011, up to 7.5 million households have doubled up. It means nearly 30% of all households had to give up independent living arrangements, which represents withheld demand from about 2.8 million households.
Rent increases across the country will continue until they reach a point where “people will realize” they can afford a mortgage for the same price they pay for rent, Colton said. Supply versus demand driven market adjustments may turn into “a very important” housing market recovery factor creating new demand as early as 2012 and during 2013.
Findings show there is no substantial difference in the way of thinking between homeowners and renters. Even though 40% of owners and 45% of renters say they have no urgency to buy now, homeownership is important to 89% of owners and 59% of renters surveyed. Sixty-six percent of all respondents “would rather build equity than pay rent,” a sentiment shared by all age groups reaching to 70% among those 45 years or older.
At present, up to 80% of households earning $75,000 or more consider it either a good time or a very good time to buy, and for several very well-known reasons. Low interest rates were cited as the primary reason by 80% of the households in this group, followed by attractive prices for 78% and abundance of choices for 63% of them. The first-time buyer market also is important since about 29% of renters are considering homeownership in the near to distant future depending on affordability.
What needs to change in order to get them back to the market? Besides employment the main obstacles why buyers are sitting on the sidelines are mortgage market related.
Downpayment is one of the key reasons that deters demand or at best directs it towards the GSEs and FHA loans that currently have the lowest threshold, at 5% and 3% down.
Up to 55% of the renters surveyed cannot afford a downpayment with 51% saying they need a better-paying job.  Ironically, the top two reasons for buying for 77% of all respondents are attractive home prices and low interest rates, along with “lots of homes for sale to choose from” for 62% of respondents.
Once again these findings suggest that mortgage underwriting guidelines and qualifying standards need to be more realistic. In Colton’s view “the market has overreacted” creating new problems. For example, while a growing group of people is self-employed and trying to start their own business because of the financial crisis, it is tough to almost impossible for them to qualify for a mortgage.
“The mortgage market is broken” and may benefit from regulation, Colton said. It may also benefit from new, reliable mortgage loans that can help invigorate the housing market, he added, granted the high-risk products offered in 2005 and 2006 that contributed to its collapse will never be reintroduced.
Positive long-term expectations for a more sustainable housing market are primarily based on the fact that major price corrections during this crisis, various price indexes, will help keep prices not only more affordable but also closer to real property value.
Investor acquisitions of REO properties in the hardest-hit areas that experienced more drastic bubble bursts like Nevada and efforts to turn them into rental housing or rent-to-purchase units also represent an important market adjustment phenomena. Plus, survey findings show homeowners and renters are weary about their financial future but “more upbeat” about their long-term housing options and homeownership, Colton said.
Judging from statistical evidence from the 1960s until the present, the nation’s homeownership rate is also adjusting to where it should be,” he said, about 64%-65%, instead of the 2007 aberration at 69%.

Existing Texas Home Sales up 18% in July

This is old news now, but highly interesting.  I just found it on Sue Larence's blog and she got it from Chip Staniswalis at Chicago Title in amarillo. "We certainly have a reason to be encouraged with our local economy here in the Texas Panhandle ~


JULY TEXAS EXISTING HOME SALES UP 18 PERCENT
COLLEGE STATION (Real Estate Center) – Sales of existing single-family homes in Texas in July were up 18 percent from a year ago, according to the most recent Multiple Listing Services (MLS) data compiled by the Real Estate Center at Texas A&M University.

Nearly 19,630 existing single-family homes were sold, data showed.
The median home price was down 1 percent to $153,200, and the state's overall inventory was at 7.9 months.
July 2011 MLS data for many Texas cities are available on the Center's website. Here is a sampling (data current as of Aug. 29, 2011): 

	Sales	Change from Last Year	Median Price	Change from Last Year	Months' Inventory
Amarillo	267	up 47%	$124,400	down 1%	7.3
Austin	2,178	up 33%	$193,900	down 9%	6.5
Brownsville	47	down 11%	$91,200	down 15%	13.1
Corpus Christi	329	up 19%	$145,900	up 8%	10
Dallas	4,064	up 21%	$165,100	down 2%	7
El Paso	466	up 12%	$133,900	down 4%	7.8
Fort Worth	724	up 18%	$109,700	down 5%	6.9
Harlingen	65	down 6%	$88,300	up 12%	23.6
Houston	5,544	up 17%	$159,300	up 1%	7.7
Lubbock	311	up 38%	$119,000	up 5%	8
San Angelo	100	up 1%	$124,600	up 5%	6.9
San Antonio	1,731	up 11%	$155,600	down 4%	8.4
Temple- Belton	158	up 12%	$125,000	up 8%	9.5
Tyler	278	up 9%	$139,200	up 3%	14.5
Wichita Falls	181	up 74%	$60,700	down 37%	8.8
Texas	19,628	up 18%	$153,200	down 1%	7.9

Thank you Sue and her team for posting such interesting information. 

Life in the Past: Gas Plant Rememberings.

Recently I took my 88 yr old Mom for a drive in the country to the gas plant I was raised at, called Fain.  It's approximately 30 miles north of Amarillo on the Dumas highway and 2 miles east of the road.  We drove into the plant without having to check with anyone and drove around where the houses use to be.  The garages are still there, but without doors, and they store junk in them.  Storing junk everywhere!  Where my house use to sit and where our park use to be.  And to top it off - the basketball/volleyball court where I spent thousands of hours shotting and playing around the world, now has an office building sitting on it.  Just broke my heart.  Mom said that it seemed like a dream that we ever lived there.

I remember moving there when I was five, and I was standing outside on the sidewalk by my house when 3 or 4 kids came up and started talking.  They turned out to be my future best friends and family, as all 16 families became one big family.  No one locked doors and everyone was in and out of each other's houses.  The ladies got together each morning to "drink coffee" but we kids knew it was to watch the soap operas and gossip, but we kids loved that, it gave us an hour or so to play together inside.  The rest of the day was spent outside, either playing in my front yard which was the largest, or the park, or at the basketball court.  Needless to say with our own court and being 30 miles from town, we formed quite a team, boys and girls, and almost everyone of us made the school team.  I actually won the school's best athelete award primarily for basketball, but I was also the setter on the volleyball team and did a little softball although we didn't have a softball school team.

At night the parents would get together at the courts to place hours of volleyball, while us kids played around the fringes, and as we got older, they allowed us to sub in once in a while.  I know I made the school team because of those nights. 

But us kids played so many things as a group.  We had work-up baseball games in the park, and I remember swinging real hard once and the catcher was too close and I bashed his mouth.  Boy, it was bad.  Problem was, he was my off and on again boyfriend.  Maybe that accident was the reason we never got serious.

We also had awesome football games, and I use to love to kick that ball as far as I could.  Yes, I'm a girl, but none of us "Fain campers" realized we girls were different from the boys, and we just all played as equals. 

We had a cellar for storms and it was huge enough to hold 16 families; and we turned the top into our skating rink, stage, and later dance area.  It was next to my house, which was very convenient.

There was only one house phone at Fain, and it was in my house.  It was a dousy.  If you wanted to make a call, you turned a handle for two longs and two shorts, and a dispatcher in Amarillo would answer.  You would give him the number, and he dialed it from in town.  Talk about an open sytem.  Every phone on that network could be picked up and listened in on your calls.  The Turkey Creek Plant between Amarillo and Borger had a line, the plant where I lived had a line, and no telling how many other places could listen in.  We hated to get the dispatcher named Jim, as he was grouchy as could be.  You could not make a call 15 minutes before or after the hour as that was when the plants called in their pressures.  So if you wanted to make a call, you had 30 minutes maximum.  Jim was not opposed to butting in and saying,  "Hey, you kids, get off the line.  I need it."  One time my godmother who was in her late 50's was using our phone - her husband was daddy's assistant superintendent at that time, and Jim got on the line and said, "Hey, if you kids at Fain would stay off the line, we could get some business done."  By that time, we only had two families at Fain, us and the Hunts.  Mildred, my godmother, never let anyone step on her, and she said, "I'll have you know that this is a 50 year old woman talking, and about all those kids at Fain, there is only one kid lives here, and she isn't using the phone."  He shut up, hung up, and we all laughed. 

But from the age of 5 to 7th grade, we had 16 families.  I can still name each and every member of every family and tell you where they lived.  I was especially close to the Lewis family and after they moved to town, their home was my home when I needed to stay in town due to school or extracurricular activities. 

Due to a change in tax laws, the company was going to have to start charging the employees for their homes, and of course, people gripped that they were required to live there and would have to pay for the houses.  So they decided to let people move to town if they wanted to, and slowly, but surely, people started moving to town.  Some of the moms had begun to work outside the  home and that daily trip to town for them was getting hazardous, and before long we had only 2 families left, the two that the company required, the Superintendent (my dad) and his assistant.  Eventually when I was in my 30's the company changed that rule too and Mom and Dad moved to town also.

Before all the houses were emptied, and it was a slow process, we would have 2 houses, and then an empty, and then more houses, and then an empty.  We used the first two empties (the Words and the McGills houses) to hold sleep over, at least us girls did.  Those turned into perfect opportunities for the boys to sneek up to the empty houses after dark, which was kind of spooky, scratch the walls outside, throw ketchup on the windows, and send us girls into screaming ninnies.  Oh, but it was fun.

We rode a school bus to school and home driven by Mrs. Waters.  Her daughter Sandy also rode the bus, and they lived at a nearby ranch.  Our route to school included several ranches, which changed from time to time.  I remember going to Mrs Fain's Ranch and picking up Susie who was our age, but she moved in 2nd grade.  There was another ranch way off the right and a precious little blonde my age lived there, but only for one year.  Then there was the Kritser Ranch to the west just before the Canadian River and we went down a cottonwood lined road to get to it to pick up a young boy.  He was several years younger than me, but I don't remember his name.  He lived there several years.  After the plant was emptied and Mrs. Waters had retired, my mom drove her car one year and a short bus until I graduated.  We went north to the Dunn Ranch and picked up the 3 Felts kids, and for a while up close to Masterson and another part of Fain where these families had several kids.  But it was weird, the ranch kids came and went and never stayed too long, except the Felts, who one girl in their family, Phyllis went thru graduation with me.

Those were long bus rides, taking up to an hour and a half each way.  When school let you, the bus had to pick up the kids at the high school,, then the jr. high and then to our elementary school.  So Fan Campers at the elementary level stayed until 4 when the bus arrived, and each week a different teacher was assigned to watch us.  I read thru the first, second and third grade libraries after school my first grade year.  We had alot of bonding time with these teachers who rotated to keep us, and we were accused many times of being the school's favorites - honestly I think we were.  We were all  good students, conscientious, smart, caring, honest, and who wouldn't just love to have us!!
LOL  One of the teachers I had for 3 years as home room teacher, was Mrs. Kate Waters, the sister-in-law to Mrs. Waters the bus driver.  We called her Battleaxe Waters behind her back, but I really did like her.  She was a great teacher and I can conjugate verbs and do my pronoun boxes to this day because of her.

I use to love to write books, stories about love (I was in middle school by then) and I'd cut out pictures from catalogs to illustrate them.  They were continuing stories, and each morning when I got to school, the girls would be waiting for that day's installment.  All day my book would make the rounds of all the girls in my class.  Mrs. Waters knew this and never conviscated it, but encouraged me constantly to keep writing.  We need good teachers like her, even if us kids called her names.  She was tough!!  But she could teach like no one else I've ever known.  Years later when she went to the same beauty shop as my mom, she told my mom that she thought I was the best writer and possibly best student she'd ever taught.  That really, really was a compliment, because she had taught alot of kids.  She was always adjusting her straps inside her neckline - and today I do the same thing.  It must to postmentopausal lack of shoulders or something.  She also had a little mustache, and you got it, I have to fight that too.  But we thought those were just "her" problems, and now I know its an age thing.  She wore her hair up in a bun, wore long dresses, high heels and commanded her classes.  She never lost control. 

I went to River Road School for 9 years, as an elementary and later junior high, and I loved every single minute but my last year.  By then the area had grown, my camp friends were gone, the new kids were a different breed, and I knew I would be going to a different high school from the other kids, so I was sort of left out of some things.  Being the star of the basketball team put me on a little pedestal for part of the year, but after basketball season, all anyone talked about was high school, and I felt left out.  I was going to another school where I'd know no one, and it was a little scarey.  But River Road was a great school for my first 9 years of education, and it is still there.  My son actually coached his team through a tournament there last year!!  Oh the memories, and yes, I took my mom there on our little journey down memory lane.  She said, it didn't look the same and that those memories too seemed like dreams.

This will end this chapter of remembering those days, but I plan to add other stories later.  Those were truly "the good ole days.".

Friend needs Prayer

My co-worker Nancy, is in surgery today for two brain tumors, that they believe are malignant.  Nancy is a feisty realtor that handles estate sales, and is passionate about jewelry.  She buys estate items herself and sells them to a loyal Ebay clientele.  Nancy is the type to always have a smile on her face and an idea of how to build someone up or give them a pat on the back. 

Last week she became ill on Tuesday, throwing up and a headache and it continued until Thursday, when she drove herself to the emergency clinic, who then hurried her to icu at the hospital.  After several tests, she was put in a room at the hospital with more tests, given pain for the excruciating headache, and given the timetable of tests to surgery.

She has now reached the surgery stage, as they couldn't find another location that hte cancer could have come from.  Please pray for this awesome realtor, friend, mother, sister, and co-worker; that the Lord will guide the surgeons hands, that the problem can be fixed, and that Nancy will return to her life good as new.  Pray for her daughter who is a college student, her sister a nurse at the same hospital and all the realtors in our office who love Nancy and want her recovery.  When two or more are gathered to pray, God promises results, and I figure the world wide internet will get more than two or more together in prayer.  Thank you for reading this and praying.

FORECLOSURES TO RENTALS - HARDER THAN ONE THOUGHT.

Well, it's turning out to be harder to turn foreclosures into rentals than the government thought, and if they are not successful, in 5 years the homes will have deteriorated to the point they won't be saleable.  Here's a great article I copied from a newsletter for mortgage lenders that I subscribe to.  Let me know what you think the answer is.

Foreclosure-to-Rental Program Great in Theory, Tough in Practice

Monday, September 19, 2011

By Kevin Wack

What seems like a no-brainer — turning the hundreds of thousands of vacant, foreclosed homes controlled by the federal government into rental units — is going to be tough to accomplish.
The logic behind the idea is compelling. Across the country today, the federal government controls around 250,000 foreclosed homes, through Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and the Federal Housing Administration. More than a million more are in the foreclosure pipeline, with homeowners having fallen well behind on their mortgage payments.
Vacant homes deteriorate quickly. And the government is selling these homes individually at what some consider fire-sale prices, often to cash-paying investors, because it is hard to get financing to buy them.
At the same time, rental housing is becoming scarcer. The nationwide rental vacancy rate is currently 9.2%, its lowest level since 2002.
"You have people thrown out of their homes who are now finding it very difficult to afford to rent a modest place just to put their family," Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., said in a recent speech.
So the Obama administration is looking for a way to turn the real estate-owned homes, or REOs, that it controls into rental housing.
"I would argue that this approach can create value if done carefully and diligently, not just minimizing losses," said Reed, a longtime champion of the idea. "The other way to look at it is: if five years from now, nothing's done, those houses are going to be, you know, it's a ghost town. The pipes will be gone. The roofs will be broken. The lawns won't be cut. And then try to sell them."
But while there is broad agreement that a rental strategy makes sense, it faces enormous operational obstacles, including disagreement over the appropriate policy goals and questions about how to account for the local nature of real estate across the United States.
It now falls to the Federal Housing Finance Agency, which oversees Fannie and Freddie, to build a rental program that can make a real dent in the foreclosure inventory.
But several large challenges remain including: Specifying the program's goals.
Last month, FHFA asked housing market participants, community groups and others to provide suggestions on how the government might facilitate the sale of the REOs it currently controls in ways that are less costly to taxpayers than its current retail sales strategy, and also help to stabilize neighborhoods and home values.
The agency made clear that these are its primary goals and that its strategy for selling off foreclosed properties will not always involve turning it into rental housing. For some homes, demolition may be a possibility.
Meg Burns, who heads the housing and regulatory policy team at FHFA, said during an appearance last week that she estimates that fewer than half of the government-controlled homes in foreclosure will end up as rental properties.
"I believe that right now our expectation is that it will not be the majority, that the dynamics in enough markets nationwide are such that moving a large number of these properties into a rental arrangement will be difficult and maybe won't make sense from a financial perspective," Burns said.
But the FHFA will have to decide whether to pursue other goals as well.

Fires in Austin area or Bastrop

My brother just sent me some pictures of the fires in Austin area; he's in Oregon at this time, living there 6 months of the year, and 6 months in Georgetown.  Thence he wasn't there at the time of the fires.  His daughter and her family live in Georgetown, and I'm sure they kept him informed of what was going on.  But the pictures he sent, were similar to the ones I'd already seen online, and one looked like hell had opened up into the skies.  The other is a view from the interstate down the traffic with billows of gray and black smoke billowing as far as the sky can be seen.

Then I read this morning about the toxic ash from the twin towers falling on 9/11/01 and how the first responders are being found to have lung diseases and cancer due to inhaling the toxic fumes. 

My question is this:  Will the people in the Bastrop area also have lung diseases, as well as the firemen, from the fumes of these massive fires.  I really had never given much thought to why they would be toxic. 

When my daughter was in middle school, her best friend's house caught on fire on Valentines day.  (By the way, that young lady is getting married today, and I so wanted to go but thought I'd be out of town at the State Convention - congratulations Jennifer!)
It didn't burn the house down, the shell and walls were still there, but it was all smoke infested and everything was ruined from the heat and the smell was awful.  We spent a few days emptying the house and inventorying it for the insurance company.  I took a few things home with me to keep until they moved into the next home.  I spent hours trying to clean them and get the awful smell out.  In the end, they rebuilt the inside of the house, moving walls, rearranging the floorplan, modernizing the house, and then moved back in.  But when they came and got the stuff I had, it still smelled bad and I imagine they didn't use it in the new home. 

After that experience, my daughter and I and several others who had helped, got sick as dogs.  I'd had pneumonia a few years earlier, and this sickness felt the same way but without fever, and I knew it was breathing in all the burned up stuff!!  Imagine if a whole town burns down how many toxins are exposed to the general public, not to mention the firefighters who put their lives on the line. 

Let's just pray that this doesn't happen, that the ruin of their homes and possessions won't be compounded by health problems.  Our hearts go out to all who were affected by these fires, and want you to know we'll continue to pray for good health and hope that through the goodness of others, you find a way to get back on the track you were on before the devastation.  Many blessings from the Lord God are wished on you this day.

Isn't America the Best Place to Enter Illegally

What a great country we have, and I don't mean that facitiously.  I love my country.  Oh, I know we have a few oddballs, and some things are just not right at this time, but I thank God that he allowed me to be born here in the land of the free and home of the brave.  After all if you enter illegally, you can almost live here free, and you had to be brave to sneak into the mightiest nation on earth.  But you have more to gain than to lose if you are successful, so that is why people illegally enter our country.  Now I have an semi-adopted son who entered from Korea, legally.  Therefore, he can't hold a job as he's here on a student visa.  But that's not the case if you come in under the shadow of night.  So to prove my point, read the following email I got:

RE: 3 American Hikers Now In The NEWS
-------------------------------------------------------------------

IF YOU CROSS THE NORTH KOREAN BORDER 
ILLEGALLY YOU GET 12 YEARS HARD LABOR.


IF YOU CROSS THE IRANIAN BORDER 
ILLEGALLY YOU ARE DETAINED INDEFINITELY. 


IF YOU CROSS THE AFGHAN BORDER 
ILLEGALLY, YOU GET SHOT. 


IF YOU CROSS THE SAUDI ARABIAN BORDER 
ILLEGALLY YOU WILL BE JAILED. 


IF YOU CROSS THE CHINESE BORDER 
ILLEGALLY YOU MAY NEVER BE HEARD FROM AGAIN. 


IF YOU CROSS THE VENEZUELAN BORDER ILLEGALLY YOU 
WILL BE BRANDED A SPY AND YOUR FATE WILL BE SEALED.


IF YOU CROSS THE CUBAN BORDER ILLEGALLY 
YOU WILL BE THROWN INTO POLITICAL PRISON TO ROT. 


IF YOU CROSS THE U.S. BORDER ILLEGALLY YOU GET !
A JOB,         A DRIVERS LICENSE, 
SOCIAL SECURITY CARD,    WELFARE, 



FOOD STAMPS,    CREDIT CARDS, 
SUBSIDIZED RENT OR A LOAN TO BUY A HOUSE,   



FREE EDUCATION, FREE HEALTH CARE, 
A LOBBYIST IN WASHINGTON BILLIONS OF DOLLARS WORTH OF PUBLIC DOCUMENTS PRINTED IN YOUR LANGUAGE 

THE RIGHT TO CARRY YOUR COUNTRY'S FLAG WHILE YOU 
PROTEST THAT YOU DON'T GET ENOUGH RESPECT 


AND, IN MANY INSTANCES, YOU CAN VOTE. 
I JUST WANTED TO MAKE SURE I HAD A FIRM GRASP ON THE "SITUATION"!

PLEASE KEEP THIS GOING......FORWARD TO ALL OF YOUR FRIENDS & FAMILY 

IT'S TIME TO WAKE UP AMERICA !