Other Central Texas Home Loan Locations

Source: Community Impact

Author: Written by Staff Tuesday, 26 May 2009

The Austin-Round Rock metropolitan area added 4,900 jobs in April, the third straight month of job growth in the region, according to the Texas Workforce Commission. Unemployment for the area fell to 5.8 percent.

“Based on a comparison of unemployment numbers and job growth, the Capital Area is one of the best places to be in Texas and the nation," said Alan Miller, Workforce Solutions executive director. "We are seeing some positive signs which we hope will continue in the coming months."

Leisure & Hospitality continued its strong growth, adding 3,000 jobs in April after adding 2,700 in March and 1,500 in February. Professional & Business Services also experienced strong growth, adding 1,300 jobs during the month. Nearly all sectors added jobs in April, with the exception of Manufacturing (-700) and Information (-100). The Manufacturing sector has now lost 5,500 jobs in the last 12 months, a -9.4 percent growth rate.

Total non-farm employment in Austin has grown by 3,400 jobs in the last year, for an annual growth rate of 0.4 percent. Austin hasn’t experienced a negative annual job growth rate since January 2004. Sectors showing strong annual growth are Education & Health Services, Professional & Business Services, and Government.

According to TWC, the unemployment rate for the Austin-Round Rock MSA dropped by 0.4 percent to 5.8 percent in April. The rate was 3.5 percent one year ago. The April 2009 unemployment rate — not seasonally adjusted — in Texas dropped to 6.4 percent, while the U.S. rate rose slightly to 8.6 percent.

Workforce Solutions – Capital Area Workforce Board is the publicly-funded workforce Board for Travis County. The Austin-Round Rock Metropolitan Statistical Area consists of Bastrop, Caldwell, Hays, Travis, and Williamson counties.

Source: Bloomberg 

Author: Kathleen M. Howley

May 28 (Bloomberg) -- Mortgage delinquencies and foreclosures rose to records in the first quarter and home-loan rates jumped to the highest since March this week as the government’s effort to fix the housing slump lost momentum.

The U.S. delinquency rate jumped to a seasonally adjusted 9.12 percent from 7.88 percent, the biggest-ever increase, and the share of loans entering foreclosure rose to 1.37 percent, the Mortgage Bankers Association said today. Both figures are the highest in records going back to 1972. Fixed rates rose to 4.91 percent, Freddie Mac said, and an increase in bond yields earlier this week shows rates may continue rising.

The three-year housing decline is proving resistant to efforts by the Federal Reserve and the Obama administration to keep homeowners current on mortgages by allowing them to refinance or sell to buyers enticed by affordable terms. Prime fixed-rate home loans to the most creditworthy borrowers accounted for the biggest share of new foreclosures at 29 percent, MBA said, a sign job losses are hurting homeowners.

“If people don’t have a paycheck they can’t support a mortgage,” Jay Brinkmann, the MBA’s chief economist, said in an interview. “The longer the recession lasts the more people run through their savings reserves, leading to higher delinquencies and higher foreclosures.”

Rates Rise

One in every eight Americans is now late on a payment or already in foreclosure as mounting job losses cause more homeowners to fall behind on loans, the MBA said.

About half of the new foreclosures were in four states: California, Florida, Arizona and Nevada, according to the report. Measuring both old and new defaults, 11 percent of all mortgages in Florida were in foreclosure at the end of the first quarter, the highest in the U.S. In Nevada, it was 7.8 percent, in Arizona, it was 5.6 percent, and in California, it was 5.2 percent. New Jersey’s foreclosure inventory was 4.3 percent, New York was 3 percent, and Massachusetts was 2.8 percent.

The average rate for a 30-year loan jumped from 4.82 percent a week earlier, Freddie Mac, the McLean, Virginia-based mortgage buyer, said today in a statement. The rate was 5.1 percent at the beginning of the year.

New home sales fell 34 percent in April from the year earlier period, the Commerce Department said today. The unemployment rate increased to 8.1 percent in the first quarter, the highest since the end of 1983, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Foreclosure Inventory

The inventory of new foreclosures and those already in the process of being foreclosed upon jumped to 3.85 percent, the MBA said. Half the loans now in foreclosure, adding the new and existing defaults, are held by prime borrowers, according to the trade group’s report. About 43 percent are subprime mortgages, and 7.1 percent are Federal Housing Administration loans. A year ago, subprime mortgages accounted for 54 percent of the U.S. foreclosure inventory. Prime fixed rate mortgages accounted for 19 percent of new foreclosures in the year earlier period.

Prime adjustable-rate mortgages accounted for 24 percent of new foreclosures, up from 23 percent, Brinkmann said. The figures show that the mortgage crisis has shifted from subprime to borrowers holding the safest type of mortgages.

Subprime adjustable mortgages accounted for 27 percent of new foreclosure, falling from a share of 39 percent a year ago, Brinkmann said.

Economic Recovery?

Delinquencies are continuing to rise even as forecasts show the economy may start improving later this year. The U.S. economic recession probably will end in the third quarter, a survey of business economists showed yesterday, even as rising joblessness indicates the recovery will be weaker than previously estimated. The world’s largest economy will begin to expand next quarter, according to 74 percent of economists in a National Association for Business Economics survey.

Home sales may reach a bottom by mid-year, according to 72 percent of the panelists, and more than six in 10 predicted housing starts will hit a trough by that time. The survey showed home prices have further to fall, with 40 percent of the respondents forecasting that declines will continue into 2010 or later.

New home sales fell 34 percent from April 2008, the Commerce Department said today, while home resales gained as foreclosure auctions enticed bargain hunters, the Chicago-based National Association of Realtors said yesterday.

Existing Home Sales

Purchases of existing homes increased 2.9 percent to an annual rate of 4.68 million from 4.55 million in March, the trade group said. The median price slumped 15 percent from a year earlier, the second-biggest drop on record, and distressed properties accounted for 45 percent of all sales.

The Realtors said in a May 12 report foreclosures dragged down the first-quarter median U.S. price by 14 percent to $169,000 from a year earlier, the biggest decline on record.

The U.S. median home price tumbled 9.5 percent last year, the most ever recorded, according to the Realtors’ group. That’s more than six times the 1.4 percent drop in 2007, the first decline in the national median since the 1930s.

This year, prices probably will fall 4.9 percent before posting a 4.4 percent gain in 2010, according to Lawrence Yun, the trade group’s chief economist.

Source: The Wall Street Journal

Cracking a Valuable Homebuyer Credit

(See Correction & Amplification below.)

Congratulations to our 44th President, Barack Hussein Obama!   

City explores upgrading downtown

Leaders hoping for a hub of businesses, shops, restaurants and entertainment.

Source:  AMERICAN-STATESMAN

ROUND ROCK — Shelly Smith envisions streets bustling with residents who spend the day shopping and eating locally, then stay for evening entertainment.

As the owner of a downtown Round Rock shop, the Thinking Cap toy store, she hopes plans to revamp downtown Round Rock into a thriving town center come to fruition.

She and other business owners and residents will get to give their input on the proposed transformation this week during a charrette — a series of brainstorming sessions that will be the catalyst for discussion on what downtown may soon become.

Residents want to come downtown, Smith said, but they also want more options.

Round Rock leaders are hoping for downtown to become a hub of businesses, shops, restaurants and entertainment alongside the residential areas, including downtown's historical homes.

"We want a new urban, true town center," said Will Hampton, the project manager for the downtown plan, noting that the city lacks entertainment and does not take advantage of its natural assets, like Brushy Creek. "It can become a destination, an economic and social and cultural engine for the community."

Smith said transforming downtown into a mixed-use community with residential, retail and dining options is a positive thing, but she said she hopes it doesn't take years to put the plan in motion.

"We need some short-term stuff, too, and a long-term plan," Smith said. "Give us some ideas that we can start doing right now in 2009. That will help us wait with the big, long-term master plan."

Urban and mixed-use developments are increasing in popularity throughout the country; in Austin, the Mueller redevelopment is changing the 711-acre former airport into a city within a city, with shops, offices and homes. The Second Street District for several years has been transforming its six-block stretch along Second Street between Colorado and San Antonio streets into a largely local mix of shops and restaurants alongside entertainment and cultural attractions.

Georgetown has managed to tap that sense of community with its town square, Smith and Hampton said. Both said they'd like to see that kind of attraction for Round Rock.

Sinclair Black, an urban design and environmental planning professor at the University of Texas at Austin, said the task won't be easy in a community defined by sprawl and said the city will have to start small. But he said transforming downtown is worth doing and will reward residents with the ability to "live and work and play in a much smaller realm."

Led by Los Angeles-based consultant Torti Gallas and Partners, the city will hear ideas from residents during the weeklong charrette. The brainstorming sessions will last for a few hours each day this week. The city is paying Torti Gallas and its subcontractors $488,500 for consulting services to develop the plan.

Neal Payton, partner with Torti Gallas, said the firm hopes to create a plan by week's end that reflects the input of residents, business owners and city leaders.

"We are hearing that there's a lot of love for the downtown area, but it's not what it could be," Payton said.

Payton said one goal would be to make Mays Street less of a barrier between the east and west part of downtown.

Already, the city has plans to build a new municipal complex on the west side of the downtown area, as well as fix streets and bring utilities underground in that area.

The charrette will focus on creating a larger picture of what downtown can be.