Texas Real Estate Daily

Freddie Mac today announced it is ordering servicers to suspend all foreclosure sales on properties with Freddie Mac-owned mortgages in the federally declared disaster areas caused by Hurricane Ike in Texas and Louisiana. Freddie Mac is one of the nation’s largest investors in residential mortgages.

“Freddie Mac is taking this step because the extensive damage Hurricane Ike caused has made it difficult for our servicers to get the information they need to make case-by-case decisions about forbearance or other workout options,” said Ingrid Beckles, vice president of servicing and asset management at Freddie Mac.

The suspension will extend from October 8 to December 31, 2008 and include mortgages that were in default prior to Hurricane Ike.

Servicers will be required after the suspension ends to consider individual circumstances in determining whether additional foreclosure relief should be extended or whether to proceed with foreclosure.

Today’s announcement only applies to properties with Freddie Mac-owned mortgages in Texas or Louisiana counties, municipalities or parishes that were declared federal disaster areas and where federal aid in the form of individual assistance is available.

Freddie Mac is a stockholder-owned corporation established by Congress in 1970 to provide liquidity, stability and affordability to the nation’s residential mortgage markets. Freddie Mac raises capital on Wall Street and throughout the world’s capital markets to finance mortgages for families across America. Over the years, Freddie Mac has made home possible for one in six homebuyers and more than five million renters.

Credits: Au.Sys.Con

The U.S. landscape industry has enjoyed decades of prosperity, but that will continue only if operators find more environmentally-friendly growing and selling methods, and embrace sustainability, says the executive vice president of the American Nursery and Landscape Association.

Speaking Wednesday at Texas A&M University, Robert Dolibois, delivered the keynote address for the Distinguished Lecture Series of the Ellison Chair in International Floriculture.

Dolibois said his Washington, DC-based organization represents some 2,300 companies that provide products and services to about 80 million U.S. households, but he said the relative good fortune of the industry faces crucial challenges that must be overcome for future success.

For one, the industry “has ridden on the back of the Boomer behemoth” for the past 15 years, he said, but now must realize that the primary purchasing population - the middle-aged households - are diminishing.

The industry certainly must pursue the Gen Y’ers - those who now are 18 to 30 years old - as they transition toward maintaining their own homes, Dolibois said, but the industry must also look for ways to extend the Boomers’ interest in buying plants and landscape items.

“In all instances, we need to reverse an alarming trend of reducing the proportion of plant materials relative to hardscaping in residential and commercial design,” he said.

Hardscaping is the use of non-plant materials such as sand, gravel or rock to landscape a space. It is preferred by residents weary of yardwork or those in arid urban environments such as Las Vegas who must decrease the amount of water they use to maintain their properties.

Dolibois said new programs such as the Sustainable Sites Initiative being developed in Austin in cooperation with the American Society of Landscape Architects, the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center and the U.S. Botanical Gardens, can show the way.

Just as the U.S. Green Building Council’s LEED® rating system measures a building’s environmental impact, the Sustainable Sites Initiative will measure the sustainability of designed landscapes of all types including public, commercial, and residential projects using a site rating system now under development.

The U.S. Green Building Council is lending its support to this project and anticipates adoption of the Sustainable Sites metrics into its LEED system once they are finished.

“Embracing sustainability,” said Dolibois, is a vital key for the industry’s success.

“At this point, it is invoked as both blessing and curse,” Dolibois said. “It is time for us to more fully pursue the concepts, define its threats and opportunities and, in significant measure, declare industry ownership of its implications for us.”

“Let’s re-engineer, re-use, revert and recycle like we never have before,” he said.

But pursuing customer groups and stepping up environmental efforts, along with possible increased regulation and the industry’s lack of research and development funds, can only be met with better problem-solving skills, Dolibois said.

“Our defense must now be built on hard data and communicated by industry business owners in their terms with authentic examples, repeatedly,” he stressed. “Such a defense will require much more research and understanding than we currently enjoy.”

Dolibois said meeting the industry’s challenges successfully is achievable “provided we build on a strong foundation of collaboration.”

The Sustainable Sites Initiative will issue its next major report on sustainable landscape design for public comment in November. A preview was presented at the American Society of Landscape Architects annual meeting and trade show that concluded Tuesday in Philadelphia.

Credits: Ens-Newswire

Dallas real estate agent Betty Mayes knows all too well about the sluggish Texas economy.

But wait, do the math.  Betty sells homes.  She has clients to buy those homes.  So what’s the problem?  “The requirements for them to prove certain things to the lender are just unbelievable,” Mayes explains. “It’s one hoop, then another hoop and another.  That wasn’t happening before.”

In simple terms, getting a loan today is harder than ever.  “We’re finding that even buyers with good credit and a good job history are finding it a little more difficult to get a loan,” says Mayes.

In fact, even people with good credit are being told, “no”.

Gone are the days of the 100% loan.  Buyers are being asked to put down more of their own cash, which is money many of them simply don’t have.

Those looking to buy a million dollar home are being told to forget it unless they can put down a third in cash. Jumbo loans are also a thing of the past.

But Mary Beth Harrison, with Keller Williams, says it’s not all ‘doom and gloom’.  “We never saw that meteoric rise in price that you saw in California, New York and Florida where things were going up 20, 30, even 50-percent in appreciation, which is crazy.”

While that type of appreciation was happening in other states, North Texans saw their homes appreciate only four to six-percent.  Experts say, that turned out to be a blessing since home values in those other states are now plummeting; making it harder to get a loan there than here.

North Texas mortgage banker Reid Mitchell puts the chances of getting a loan in perspective.  Mitchell says he’s turning down nearly half of those who apply for home loans; even before they start looking at houses.

Both Mayes and Harrison agree that the weak economy is likely to eliminate more than a quarter of the real estate agents currently working in North Texas.

Credits: CBS11TV

Retail gasoline prices in Austin have fallen an average of 22 cents over the last week as refiners increase the supply of fuel on the market after recovering from Hurricane Ike last month.

Also, the current economic downturn is driving down the price of crude oil on the commodities market.

Drivers in San Antonio are currently paying $3.26 on average for a gallon of regular gasoline. That’s down from $3.49 the week before, according to AAA Texas.

Three months ago, local drivers were paying a record high of $3.96 a gallon, more than 78 cents higher than what they are paying at current levels.

“Fuel demand in both the U.S. and Europe is lower than last year, the current economic situation has driven down the price of crude oil, and Gulf refineries are just about back to their normal volumes for production and delivery, after Hurricane Ike,” says AAA-Texas Houston spokesperson Sarah Schimmer. “With lower demand, and more fuel in the market, Texas prices have decreased.”

The statewide average price of regular unleaded gasoline fell by more than 22 cents over the past week to close at $3.28 a gallon. That mirrors the national average of $3.40 a gallon, also down about 19 cents from last week.

Credits: Biz Journals