Houston Employment At Record Levels – That’s Good For Housing

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In a nutshell, if you don’t have a job, you can’t get a mortgage. With no mortgage, if you’re like most people, you can’t buy a house. So the fact that employment in Houston is at record levels bodes well for our future, especially the housing market.

Employment is therefore a leading indicator relative to housing sales which should start to come out of the doldrums this year. Mortgages may be harder to get than in the past, but jobs provide the grease to propel real estate transactions and valuations.

If you would like to talk about your situation, buying or selling, please don’t hesitate to call me at 281-582-3925. I will get back to you as quickly as I can if I am not there. You can also email me at slandreth@heritagetexas.com

Data is Based on information from the Houston Realtors® Information Service or its MLS for the period 1/1/2007 through 12/31/2012.

© 2012 Scott Landreth

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Termination Option? You Must Be Nuts

A few years ago, I got a call from an attorney who happened to be the uncle of one of my clients whose house I had listed. The sellers (my clients) had just accepted and executed a contract that included a Termination Option. The attorney/uncle lit into me like a Hellfire missile flying up the exhaust of a Soviet T-62 battle tank. His beef, which he made amply and loudly clear, was his nephew’s agreement to extend to the buyer an unrestricted option to terminate the contract. Adding insult to injury, the seller did not have an equal reciprocal right. He claimed that my company and I were offering bad advice and that we should have our licenses revoked and, further, tarred, feathered, and quartered by stampeding stallions. As the assault lost steam and I was able to get a word in, I tried to explain how Paragraph 23 of the Residential Sale Contract worked.

Appraisal Changes arrive September 1!

FNMA (Fannie) and FHLMC (Freddie) have implemented a Lending Quality Initiative (LQI) with several phases that began in 2010. The current phase of the LQI program is focused on the quality of appraisals. The theory is that less subjectivity and more standardization will improve consistency and quality. Appraisal forms are being modified in the key areas that caused problems in the past. Home characteristics that were previously considered subjective are now defined with ratings. Here are the specific areas of change: