Register Real Estate Advisors

HOUSTON (CBS Radio) – How’s Houston’s housing market faring? Is now a good time to buy? What will buyer confidence be like this fall and winter?
Real Estate Center Research Economist Dr. Jim Gaines addressed these questions and more last week on Realtor Shannon Register’s weekly radio show. You can watch the video online .

SAN ANTONIO (San Antonio Express-News, Dallas Morning News)
– Foreclosure-tracking firms are reporting drops in foreclosure rates around
Texas, but at least one housing expert cautions against jumping to conclusions.

“What we’ve had is a slowdown in foreclosure activity because of the
‘robo-signing’ scandal,” Dr. Jim Gaines told the San Antonio Express-News.
Gaines is a research economist with the Real Estate Center at Texas A&M
University.

Foreclosure postings around the rest of the country have dipped because of
fraud allegations leveled against financial institutions where employees
“robo-signed” volumes of foreclosure paperwork without verifying the
information. Gaines said Texas could be following the same pattern.

San Antonio-based foreclosure tracking firm RexReport reported 6.9 percent
fewer foreclosures in the first half of 2011 than during the same period last
year.

Foreclosure Listing Service said postings in the
Dallas-Fort Worth area are down 7 percent so far this year compared
with the first six months of last year.

On the other hand, 2011 could, in retrospect, be seen as the
turning point.

“At the local level, it really could be some early sign that we’ve gotten
over the hump of the big wave of problems of foreclosures. It’s a relatively
small drop-off, but at least it’s a drop-off,” Gaines said.

Several months ago I started joining Kevin Price as a regualar contributor on the Price of Business and American Lifestyles on Talk 650 AM Radio in Houston.  These are CBS Broadcasts and CBS is the oldest name in news radio.  It is the pioneer of this genre with the work done by Edward R. Murrow and is one of the biggest recipients of awards in the industry.  I enjoy contributing to the program and have had many special guests join me on the program.  Some of my guests have included Dr. Jim Gaines from Texas A&M University, Chuck Jacobus, and Al Nahas.  Soon we will be having Mike Blalock, from Postoak Publishing on the show to talk about his Houston Newcomer Guides.

I contribute to these CBS Radio Shows because I can share real estate industry news that I feel is important to consumers.  In the previous months we have discussed the 2011 economic forecast, the foreclosure and short sale crisis, and many other relevant topics to today’s real estate consumer. 

CBS Broadcasting Inc. (CBS) is a major American television network, which started as a radio network.  Walter Cronkite was the anchor of the “CBS Evening News” from 1962 until 1981. He became so influential in the role that when he began to question the U.S. war in Vietnam, President Lyndon B. Johnson said, “If I’ve lost Cronkite, I’ve lost middle America.”  CBS, with its partnership with AOL radio, is the second largest provider of streaming content on the Internet — second only to YouTube.  This means the shows we produce and video in the studio are one of the easiest to be found online.  This link will take you to all of the radio shows that I have contributed to and I look forward to many more with Kevin Price!

http://rrea.com/cbsradio

Aired live 12-14-10. “Price of Business” host Kevin Price and Shannon Register discuss the real estate outlook for 2011 with Dr. Jim Gaines, research economist with the Mays Business School Real Estate Research Center at Texas A&M University.

TEXAS (Real Estate Center, The Herald-Zeitung) – Despite rising foreclosure rates in the United States (now nearly 32 percent), the rate in Texas is down 14 percent since last year.

Jim Gaines, research economist with the Real Estate Center at Texas A&M University, said the Texas housing market is doing very well compared with the rest of the nation.

“We’re being compared to large, high-growth states like Florida, New York, California and Illinois, and our housing market is in much better shape. This is partly because about four or five years ago, we didn’t have the big run-up in prices that many of those states had,” Gaines said.

Texas also benefits from a lack of overbuilding, which often creates an excess of inventory to drive down home prices.

Affordable homes, low mortgage and interest rates, and first-time homebuyer tax credits also make this an ideal time to buy a home, according to Gaines.