Houston Housing Market: Outlook Uncertain
The growing number of Texas home loan foreclosures and worries about the housing market bust nationally has everyone thinking about what to expect.
Those who have not been affected by the home mortgage foreclosure wave may find themselves putting their money into foreclosed property at a very low rate.
Economist Barton Smith, with the University of Houston, said the national housing market hasn’t leveled and is far from it, prompting everybody to talk about.
Even more, rising bad credit mortgage woes and a slow housing market may have negative implications for a national economy already with ups and downs.
“There are many regional markets in the U.S. in which the severity of the housing correction has already reached a level that will probably slow down the U.S. economy even more,” said Smith.
Smith, director of the Institute of Regional Forecasting at the University of Houston, every year presents a symposium focused on the real estate business.
Smith said the main maladies of the country’s housing markets are excessive prices, overbuilding and foreclosure rates.
Houston is suffering from an unusually high Texas mortgage foreclosure rate compared to other markets in the state, even with a market experiencing only modest declines compared to California.
Houston housing prices are relatively stable, Texas home loan rates are low, and building new houses within the metropolitan area is still fairly modest.
Smith predicted that the Houston housing market will cool off because the area’s economic growth will slow down, but is still, in the end, significantly better off than the national average.
