Southwest U.S. Housing Market - Texas

1. Southwest U.S. Housing Market - Texas

2. Texas is “Hold ‘Em” On Texas is very fortunate that they are not suffering from low housing values, like some other states. That is not to say they have a perfect market. Texas is struggling with job layoffs, mainly from oil and energy companies. This obviously causes foreclosures, which in turn amounts to decreased housing values.

3. Cartels Overrunning El Paso In west Texas, El Paso borders Juarez, Mexico, a drug war zone. The El Paso economy is beginning to feel impact from the drug wars in Mexico, which is affecting the area’s housing values. El Paso home values declined 8.7% in 2009, mostly due to the drugs and violence along the border with Mexico.

4. “Houston, We Have a Problem” Texas’ largest city, Houston, has been suffering from crucial home value declines for the last two years. Over 1/3 of home sales are foreclosed properties. This problem could be stemming from large Houston businesses filing for bankruptcy and laying off employees in Texas’ most populated area.

5. “Energy Capital of the World” is Having Outages In 2009 the Houston housing market was hit severely hard, with home values diminishing at an average of 9.8%.

6. The Big “D”, for Dallas or Danger? The Dallas-Fort Worth area has recently seen a large decrease in construction of new homes, however the area ranks 2nd in the nation, to Houston, for new home sales. This however does not mean the market here is good. Sales are not what they usually are and home values continue to decline.

7. Dropping The Ball In Dallas With high purchases of new homes in the Dallas area, many foreclosures could be looming in the future for those new homeowners, creating an extraordinarily negative impact of the housing market. The Dallas population seems to be growing smaller, causing few to very little house or condo sales in 2009, deflating the housing value 9.2%.

8. Another Alamo for San Antonio San Antonio is desperately struggling with falling home prices, due to the most over-built market in the entire Lonestar State. Defaults in subprime and conventional mortgages are hurting the area, causing the worst foreclosure rate in the state. Housing values have plunged 10.2% in 2009, because of the large amount of foreclosures.

9. A Stable Capital The Texas capital, Austin is experiencing a very stable housing market right now, mainly contributed to a strong high-tech business field and younger people that are working hard toward buying their first home. Prior to 2009, Austin’s housing prices were climbing. However, as of 2009 there is a 4.8% decline, because of tight mortgage standards.

10. “The Yellow Rose” and “The Hub” Have No Worries Amarillo, or The Yellow Rose, is not facing the financial crisis like most of the state, along with Lubbock. Home sales have slowed and foreclosures are small, however mortgages are still hard to get. In 2009, Amarillo’s housing value will increase 2.1% and Lubbock’s value will inflate 1.6%.

11. Market Overview: 2009