Thursday, April 17, 2008

Houston area housing stats, March 2008

I am sure most folks interested in Houston housing read the latest HAR sales data as posted by Nancy Sarnoff in the Houston Chronicle on April 15. There is a slow down occuring across all housing segments but it is my opinion that the slow down is/has occured because of the tighter lending standards created by the mortgage meltdown. Houston is clearly creating jobs but if homeowners can't sell their existing home they will have trouble moving up to more expensive homes.

The data in the Sunday, April 13 Chronicle showed that most of the upper end housing communities located in Montgomery, Fort Bend, Brazoria and Galveston Counties had annual apprcciation during 2007 and we expect this to continue especially for the nicer Master Planned Communities (MPC's). Clearly job growth is moving west, southeast, south, southwest, northwest and north. There have been at least four major new office and/or medical developments announced in Fort Bend County in the past month. You can drive the West Sam Houston Tollway from Hwy 59 (Southwest Freeway) north to I-45 North and you will find at least 10 new office buildings under construction or recently finished and they are filling up based on leases announced in the Chronicle.

All of this job growth is fueling our economy. The only problem in Houston is that the mortgage meltdown has created a tight lending market, which, in time, will correct itself. Hopefully the mortgage issues will be resolved within the next six to ten months. When it is, rest assured the pent up demand for housing will be released. Even with slowing sales numbers this past March, the median home price still rose. Houston is still the best housing market in the country and with the creation of more jobs, Houston will contiue to prosper. Thanks for reading the blog, Kirk Laguarta

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Monday, March 10, 2008

Land Advisors Organization Intro blog

Welcome to the latest technology for the Land Advisors Organization (LAO). We look forward to further assisting our clients and customers by providing them with the latest in information and technology when it comes to commercial real estate. To that end we have now added the LAO blog for the Houston commercial real estate market. We at LAO look forward to sharing out thoughts, ideas and professional perspective on anything and everything that is commercial real estate in the Greater Houston area.

Having more than 25 years of experience in commercial real estate in Houston and having sold more than 20,000 acre of land in Harris and every county adjacent to Harris in the past 36 months provides LAO a unique advantage. We know the land and housing market better than any brokerage company in the Houston area and are here to provide a unique perspective on the land and housing market in the Greater Houston area. Thanks for visiting the LAO blog, Kirk Laguarta, Houston LAO broker.

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