WASHINGTON, D.C. (U.S. EPA) – The Gulf Coast Ecosystem Restoration Task Force yesterday released its final strategy for long-term ecosystem restoration for the Gulf Coast, following extensive feedback from citizens throughout the region.

According to a press release from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), this ”marks the beginning of the implementation phase of the strategy by announcing new initiatives, including $50 million in assistance from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Natural Resources Conservation Service to help agricultural producers in seven Gulf Coast river basins improve water quality, increase water conservation and enhance wildlife habitat.

“USDA’s multi-year environmental restoration effort, known as the Gulf of Mexico Initiative, or GoMI, represents a 1,100 percent increase in financial assistance for Gulf priority watersheds.”

The EPA said this the first restoration blueprint developed for the Gulf to include input from states, tribes, federal agencies, local governments and thousands of citizens and organizations across the region.

HOUSTON (realtynewsreport.com) – In what is being pronounced the world’s largest office lease of the year, Shell Oil has renewed its 1.2 million sf lease in downtown Houston’s
Class-A Shell Plaza.

The company renewed 804,491 sf at One Shell Plaza and 471,934 sf at Two Shell Plaza.

The 15-year lease term is retroactive to Jan. 1, 2011, and expires in 2025.

The two million-sf Shell Plaza has been owned, managed and leased by Hines since it was developed in 1970.

Cushman & Wakefield represented Shell in the transaction. Hines used in-house representation.

NEW YORK (Forbes.com) – When it comes to which states will add the highest percentage of jobs over the next few years, Forbes reports Texas will lead the way.

Total employment here is forecast to expand 2.9 percent annually through 2015, according to research firm Moody’s Analytics. That represents 1.6 million new net jobs for the state over five years.

Forbes points to Texas’ “low tax, business-friendly climate with a surging population that offers a nearly unlimited supply of young labor” as reasons for the growth. However, it also acknowledges that the state’s rapid population growth has pushed its unemployment rate to 8.5 percent, the highest in 24 years.

COLLEGE STATION (Real Estate Center) – Texas’ employment growth rate is
slowing down thanks to government job losses, but the state’s private sector is
still cranking out jobs and offsetting government job losses, according to the
latest Monthly Review of the Texas Economy.

The state created 15.4 percent of total jobs created in the United States
from October 2010 to October 2011.

Texas gained 232,500 nonfarm jobs during the period, an annual growth rate
of 2.2 percent compared with 1.2 percent for the United States. The state’s
private sector added 287,900 jobs, an annual growth rate of 3.4 percent
compared with 1.7 percent for the nation’s private sector.

The state’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate increased to 8.4 percent
in October 2011 from 8.2 percent a year earlier. The nation’s rate
decreased from 9.7 to 9.0 percent.

All Texas industries except the information industry and the state’s
government sector had more jobs in October 2011 than in October 2010. The
state’s mining and logging industry ranked first in job creation, followed by
the professional and business services industry, and the leisure and
hospitality industry.

All Texas metro areas except Abilene, Wichita Falls, Texarkana and College
Station-Bryan had more jobs in October 2011 than in October 2010. Victoria
ranked first in job creation followed by Laredo, Corpus Christi, Odessa and
Lubbock.

The state’s actual unemployment rate in October 2011 was 8 percent. Midland
had the lowest unemployment rate followed by Amarillo, Odessa, Lubbock and
College Station-Bryan.

TEXAS REALTOR AMONG 2012 NAR OFFICERS

WASHINGTON, D.C. (National ssociation of Realtors) – Texas Real Estate Commission Chair and Real Estate Center Advisory Committee ex-officio member Avis Wukasch has been named
a National Association of Realtors (NAR) 2012 regional vice president.

Wukash, a Williamson County Realtor, will represent NAR’s Region X, which includes Texas and Louisiana.

The association installed its 2012 officers yesterday at the 2011 Realtors Conference and Expo in Anaheim, California.

Miami Realtor Maurice “Moe” Veissi will serve as NAR president, while Gary Thomas of Orange County will be president-elect. First vice president will be Steve Brown, a Realtor from Dayton, Ohio.

NORCROSS, Ga. (Site Selection)
– Texas has claimed the top slot in Site Selection magazine’s “Top Business Climate 2011″ contest.

The Lone Star State finished strong in the objective, data-driven component of the index used to determine the top business climates, as
well as in the subjective input supplied by respondents to the magazine’s annual executive survey of site selectors.

One survey respondent commended Texas for being “a pro-business, entrepreneurial, right-to-work state.” Another applauded the state’s
tax climate, regulatory environment, incentive programs and work-force development efforts.

Site Selection reported that 40 percent of the new U.S. jobs created since June 2009 were created in Texas. A ranking by NewGeography.com supports that.

That site’s “Best Cities for Job Growth 2011″ rankings look at employment data over time across three population tiers. In the small
metros category, Killeen-Temple-Fort Hood placed first, College Station-Bryan third and Midland fourth. El Paso placed first in
the midsize tier, followed by Corpus Christi and, in fourth, McAllen-Edinburg-Mission.  In the large tier, Austin-Round Rock-San Marcos placed first, Houston-Sugar
Land-Baytown third, San Antonio-New Braunfels fourth and Dallas-Plano-Irving fifth.

Those jobs mean demand for office space, another area in which Texas has stood out. Houston, Austin and Dallas finished in the top ten markets
nationally in office space demand, according to an analysis by national real estate services firm Cassidy Turley. The firm found those
three markets alone accounted for nearly 20 percent of all net demand in third quarter 2011.

“Other markets in Texas are also positive,” said Kevin Thorpe, chief economist with Cassidy Turley. “The U.S. is a mixed-bag story, with
many negative markets and many positive markets. In Texas, it’s positive across the board.”

TYLER (Texas Veterans Land Board) – Generations of veterans gathered Wednesday in Tyler to dedicate what Texas Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson called a “one-of-a-kind” home for Texas veterans. Patterson said Watkins-Logan-Garrison Texas State Veterans Home is “nothing less than a model for the future of long-term care.” What makes the facility unique? It’s the only state veterans home in Texas that consists of ten cottages, each centered around an open kitchen and one common building. Family-style meals will be served at the table, and residents can enjoy each other’s company afterward in a large living room with a fireplace. “The kitchen is the heart of any home,” Patterson said. “Instead of one large, hospital-like facility, Watkins-Logan-Garrison Texas State Veterans Home draws residents together around the dinner table every day, just like at home.”
The Tyler facility was built on 20 acres donated by the University of Texas Health Science Center at Tyler. A grant from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs paid for 65 percent of the construction costs. The remainder was covered by a grant from the Veterans Land Board.
The home was named in honor of three local heroes, two Medal of Honor recipients and a Tuskegee airman: Travis Earl Watkins, James Marion Logan and Samuel M. Garrison. It joins seven other Texas State Veterans Homes across the state in Amarillo, Big Spring, Bonham, El Paso, Floresville, McAllen and Temple. For more on this story, listen to Edie Craig’s “Small Towns, Big Deals” report on this week’s Real Estate Red Zone podcast.

Are you interested in buying or selling a property? Register Real Estate Advisors hosts seminars on the first, second, third, and fourth Thursday of each month. The first week of each month focuses on Foreclosure Counseling. These seminars look at how to stop the foreclosure process and sell your home as a short sale, how to buy a foreclosure, and buying short sales. The second week of each month is a Credit Seminar. This seminar will focus on credit issues that keep buyers from qualifying for a mortgage and help them correct credit issues so they can purchase in the future. The third Thursday of the month is a Buyer’s Seminar. This seminar is for first time home buyers and repreat home buyers alike. These can be resale home buyers and new construction home sales. The fourth Thursday of the month is a Seller’s Seminar where Realtors will discuss marketing strategies, home pricing, and more with potential sellers. If you know someone that will benefit from a real estate seminar, please forward this information to them. The seminars will be held at 1614 Louetta Rd. Ste I Spring, Texas, 77388 from 6-7pm. These informative seminars will be hosted by Realtors and will sometimes have guest speakers such as Title Company Representatives, Lenders, Inspectors, Appraisers, and other industry experts. We hope you will attend and bring your questions! You can call 281.288.3500 for more information.

Mark G. Dotzour wrote an article in the July 2011 Tierra Grande Magazine that discusses the constant changes in the housing market and what indicators Realtors should look for to increase and decrease sales.  Since he writes for a Realtor Magazine, I wanted to share this information with consumers.  He states that most of the year the housing flow is “normal.”  For Realtors, transaction volume ebbs and flows just like consumer demand for homes changes month to month.

Below are some indicators that can predict where the housing market is headed according to Dotzour:

• graduates from college and whether they can get a job;
• marriage;
• having children and needing a bigger home or a
  different school district;
• get promoted and move to another city or another
  neighborhood;
• lose a job and no longer able to afford
  their house;
• get divorced and have to sell the house or move
  into a smaller one;
• buy a second home near adult children;
• need to move into a smaller, one-story house
  with less maintenance;
• reach a point at which they can no longer care
  for themselves and need to move to an assisted-living facility;
• move to the United States from other countries
  to improve their quality of life; or
• move from other countries and buy homes here to
  protect their wealth and secure their safety.

The expansive Midwest flooding that made headlines for weeks this spring is a reminder that every now and then nature plays havoc with
rivers.  Similarly, certain events and circumstances can cause housing transaction volume to rise significantly.  For example, increases may occur when:

• home prices increase fast enough that the
  investment motive spurs purchases;
• prices increase even faster and speculators buy
  homes to flip them;
• prices increase consistently, so people prefer
  to buy now rather than pay a higher price later;
• mortgage rates drop enough that many people can
  afford to buy a bigger house or move to a nicer neighborhood without a
  significant increase in their house payments;
• the government offers tax incentives to
  homebuyers; or
• houses are affordable to a broad segment of all
  households and mortgage underwriting standards are lowered to include a broader
  range of credit risk.

Extreme weather patterns that spawn floods do not last forever.  When they end, rivers return to their normal level within the banks.

At the other end of the weather spectrum is drought, which lowers the river’s water volume.
Transaction volume ebbs, too, when circumstances such as the following occur:

• people are worried about losing their jobs so
  they postpone buying decisions;
• people are worried that home prices will fall,
  and they might lose their equity;
• house prices rise so fast that they become
  unaffordable;
• lenders tighten mortgage underwriting standards,
  and by doing so remove potential buyers from the market;
• appraisals come in  well below the contract price agreed to by a
  seller and a buyer;
• cost of homeownership increases (taxes,
  utilities and insurance);
• lack of liquidity in the market makes it harder
  to sell homes;
• employers reduce corporate transfers to save
  money; or
• random scares, such as radon gas or black mold,
  make media headlines.

As the second half of 2011 begins, buyers all over the country are still skittish because of all the negative housing headlines.  But there is evidence that Texas’ residential
housing market is beginning the gradual, lengthy process of moving back to normal.

Real estate operates in a local market.  What happens in Las Vegas does not really matter to a homebuyer in Abilene.  Each
local market has its own story and its own dynamics.

Dr. Dotzour is a chief economist with the Real Estate Center at Texas A&M University.  Although the article was written for a Realtor audience, I thought the information was great for consumers, too!

SEATTLE, Oct. 11, 2011 /PRNewswire/ — Home values in the United States
showed minimal monthly appreciation in August of 2011, according to the Zillow®
Real Estate Market Report(i). The Zillow Home Value Index(ii) increased 0.1
percent from July to August. On a year-over-year basis home values declined 4.5
percent to $172,600. Home values have fallen 28.3 percent since they peaked in
June 2006.

Regionally, 68 of the 157 metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs) covered by experienced monthly home value appreciation, though minimal in many
areas. Most notably, two of the hardest hit markets, Detroit and Ft. Myers, Fla., have now seen five and nine consecutive months of appreciation,
respectively. Seventy-four markets saw home value depreciation and 15 markets, including Los Angeles, Dallas and Miami-Ft. Lauderdale, Fla., remained flat.

The foreclosure liquidation rate, which measures the number of homes lost to the bank, stayed steady at around 9.2 out of every 10,000 homes foreclosed in
August. This is down from the rate of 10.9 out of every 10,000 homes in October 2010, before the robo-signing lawsuits slowed the pace of foreclosures in most
states.  However, foreclosure liquidations remained high in many of the hardest hit metros in California, Nevada, and Arizona. In Las Vegas and Phoenix
more than 30 out of every 10,000 homes were liquidated in August.

“Due to the robo-signing controversy, the pace of foreclosure liquidations has been slower than it would be otherwise, which is impacting
home value trends positively. Eventually the pace will pick up again, putting more bank-owned homes into local markets and putting additional downward
pressure on prices,” said Zillow Chief Economist Dr. Stan Humphries. “We remain encouraged about the organic stabilization in home values that
we have been seeing absent the federal home buyer tax credits, but we remain concerned about the impact that recent economic turmoil and continued weak
economic indicators will have on future home sales and home value trends.”

“At this point, we maintain the expectation that a definitive bottom will not occur until 2012 at the earliest.”

The full national report, in its interactive format, will be available at www.zillow.com/local-info at 8:00am
ET on Tuesday, Oct. 11.  Additionally, in most areas data is available at
the state, metro, county, city, ZIP code and neighborhood level.

About Zillow, Inc.

Zillow (NASDAQ: Z) is the leading real estate information marketplace,
providing vital information about homes, real estate listings and mortgages
through its website and mobile applications, enabling homeowners, buyers,
sellers and renters to connect with real estate and mortgage professionals best
suited to meet their needs. More than 24 million unique users visited Zillow’s
websites and mobile applications in September 2011. Zillow, Inc. operates
Zillow.com®, Zillow Mortgage Marketplace, Zillow Mobile and Postlets. The
company is headquartered in Seattle.

Zillow.com, Zillow, Zestimate and Postlets are registered trademarks of
Zillow, Inc.

(i) The data in Zillow’s Real Estate Market Reports is aggregated from
public sources by a number of data providers for 157 metropolitan statistical
areas dating back to 1996. Mortgage and home loan data is typically recorded in
each county and publicly available through a county recorder’s office.

(ii) The Zillow Home Value Index is the median Zestimate® valuation for a given
geographic area on a given day and includes the value of all single-family
residences, condominiums and cooperatives, regardless of whether they sold
within a given period. The Home Value Index at the national level is calculated
using a weighted average of the median home value for each county and includes
data from 440 metropolitan statistical areas. It is expressed in dollars and is
for a particular geographic region.

SOURCE Zillow, Inc.