By Les Christie, CNNMoney.com staff writer

Last Updated: March 7, 2008: 12:23 PM EST

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — Mortgage costs just got cheaper for buyers in high-cost areas.

The size of loans that can be guaranteed by Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae was raised today by the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight. The new, higher loan limits will stay in effect through the end of the year, allowing the government sponsored enterprises (GSEs), to buy much higher-priced mortgages in some areas of the country.

Also today, the size of the loans that the Federal Housing Authority (FHA) can insure was raised by Housing and Urban Development (HUD).

Both moves will lower borrowing costs for buyers of higher priced homes, and aim to boost flagging real estate markets.

Best time to buy a home in four years

Previously, Fannie and Freddie could only insure mortgages of up to $417,000, called conforming loans. That meant, assuming a 20% down payment, that only buyers of homes costing $521,500 or less were eligible for mortgages with GSE backing.

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Tags: FHA, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, GSEs, HUD, buyers, economy, financing, foreclosure, investing, lending, loans, mortgages, real estate, real estate outlook, when to buy, where to buy by Aria
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Wednesday, March 12, 2008 - 2:52 PM CDT

The San Antonio-based developer is building the 276-unit Residences at Oak Hill on a 45-acre tract west of the intersection of State Highway 71 and U.S. Highway 290 in Southwest Austin.

Dustin Slack, vice president of multifamily development for McShane, says that with single-family home prices in Southwest Austin pushing the limits of affordability, there’s an opportunity for new luxury rental communities that appeal to the area’s growing high-tech workforce.

“There is an enormous demand for luxury rental communities due to the recent completion of the corporate headquarters for AMD (Advanced Micro Devices Inc.) together with over 1 million square feet of new corporate campus office space in the immediate area,” says Slack. He also points out that the project is positioned near Sunset Valley to the east and the Hill Country Galleria to the west.

The garden-style rental community will feature a combination of one-, two- and three-bedroom units ranging in size from 600 square feet to 1,300 square feet.

Slack expects the first units to be available in January 2009.

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For more information about this or any Austin real estate project, email me.

Tags: austin, austin real estate, building, condos, economy, investing, neighborhoods, real estate, real estate outlook, where to buy by Aria
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Builders, consumers increasingly turning to metal roofs for durability, energy-efficiency and sustainability

By Nancy Keates
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
Sunday, March 09, 2008

More home builders and renovators are saying no to asphalt-shingle roofs, heralding a revival of interest in slate, clay tile, wood shake and other historically popular materials that are considered both aesthetically pleasing and less harmful to the environment.

But most of these options are impractical. Slate and clay tile are heavy and might require structural reinforcement. Wood isn’t durable and offers limited fire resistance. And next to mass-produced asphalt shingles, all of them cost a small fortune, even on a moderate-size home.

There is one asphalt alternative whose resurgence is on a fast track: metal. Metal roofs are increasingly appearing on new homes and renovations because of their style and relative affordability. Some even mimic the look of slate and wood shakes.

Architectural metal roofs in new-home construction reached a projected 30 percent of the market in 2007, up from 23 percent in 2004, according to the National Roofing Contractors Association’s latest member survey. Meanwhile, fiberglass-asphalt shingles were used in a projected 44 percent of new residential projects in 2007, down from 50 percent in 2004. Slate roofs slipped slightly in that period to a projected 5.1 percent of new homes, while clay-tile roofs grew slightly to a projected 4.6 percent, and wood shakes slipped to a projected 2.1 percent.

Metal roofs boast a number of advantages. They are regarded as more fireproof than wood shakes and traditional asphalt shingles, and they last up to twice as long, contractors say. They can withstand high winds and, when treated with coatings and finishes, they reflect heat, helping keep the house cool and utility bills down in hot climates. As concerns mount over used asphalt shingles clogging up landfills, many consumers like having a roof that is often both recycled and recyclable.

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Tags: austin, building, economy, environment, green, investing, real estate by Aria
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Wednesday, March 5, 2008 - 3:50 PM CST

Austin Business Journal

The steel and glass residential towers set to reshape the downtown Austin skyline aren’t a pipedream. They’re coming–and they’re going to be filled, a new study shows.

The analysis from Texas economist Ray Perryman suggests that while the nation battles a housing correction, Austin’s residential market remains relatively healthy. Moreover, says Perryman, there is clear demand among Austinites to live in the city’s vibrant downtown.

There are currently about 6,000 people living downtown. And with about 4,000 residential units under construction or planned around downtown, that population is expected to double over the next two years. Perryman says with the Austin area adding more than 40,000 new residents annually, the local housing market will continue to fair well, and rising energy costs and traffic woes will drive a growing interest in urban living.

“This housing market will fundamentally support the type of housing being developed downtown,” Perryman said at a morning press conference at City Hall organized to discuss the report. “There is an amble population to absorb these units.”

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Tags: austin, building, buyers, condos, downtown, economy, investing, neighborhoods, real estate, urban living by Aria
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BERNANKE’S MORTGAGE RELIEF PLAN

By Jeannine Aversa
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Wednesday, March 05, 2008

WASHINGTON — Ben Bernanke is using his bully pulpit to try to keep more Americans from getting swept up in a wave of home foreclosures.

Bernanke, chairman of the Federal Reserve, urged mortgage lenders Tuesday to reduce the principal on loans for many people whose homes are no longer worth as much as what they owe. He also suggested that the Federal Housing Administration broaden its insurance program and let more people switch from subprime mortgages to cheaper, federally insured loans

“This situation calls for a vigorous response,” Bernanke said in a speech to a banking group in Orlando, Fla.

Even with relief efforts under way by industry and government, foreclosures and late payments on home mortgages probably will increase “for a while longer,” Bernanke warned.

Rising foreclosures threaten to increase the problems in the housing market and the economy.

“Reducing the rate of preventable foreclosures would promote economic stability for households, neighborhoods and the nation as a whole,” Bernanke said. “Although lenders and servicers have scaled up their efforts and adopted a wider variety of loss-mitigation techniques, more can, and should, be done,” the Fed chief said.

Some owners can avoid foreclosure by selling their homes to pay off the loans. But that’s not possible when the homes are worth less than the mortgage balance.

Bernanke acknowledged that reducing balances might be a tough sell to lenders.

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Tags: austin, austin real estate, economy, financing, foreclosure, investing, lending, money, mortgages, politics, real estate, real estate outlook by Aria
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Home values have declined across the country, giving homebuyers the best buys they’ve had since 2004.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — It may be the best time to buy a house in more than four years.

Home prices have dropped so quickly and so far that valuations - the difference between what a home should cost and its actual price - are the lowest they’ve been since 2004, according to a report.

The Cleveland-based bank National City Corp. (NCC, Fortune 500), together with financial analysis firm Global Insight, revealed Tuesday that more than 88% of the 330 housing markets surveyed showed price declines and improved affordability during the last three months of 2007.

“Housing valuations are almost back to long-term norms,” said National City’s chief economist, Richard DeKaser. He called current affordability “the best in the past four years.”

But DeKaser cautioned that home prices could fall even further.

“This isn’t to say home price declines are over,” he said. “We could move below historic norms. By the end of 2008, housing markets could be broadly under valued.”

Prices still improving

There are still 21 housing markets, or 6% of those surveyed, that are severely over valued, including Atlantic City and Madera, Calif. That’s down from 56 overvalued markets at the peak of the housing bubble in 2006.

The report compares actual median home prices with what the authors determine are proper home values based on population density, relative income levels and interest rates, as well as historically observed market premiums or discounts, to determine whether markets are over or under valued.

The report also factors in market intangibles that make some areas more desirable places to live, and more expensive.

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Tags: austin, austin real estate, buyers, economy, financing, investing, money, neighborhoods, real estate, real estate outlook, sellers, where to buy by Aria
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Brian Wingfield and William Pentland 01.30.08, 2:20 PM ET

It’s no secret that the Southeast and Western United States are booming. The costs of living and doing business there are often cheaper there than in big coastal cities. But where and how much those cities are thriving might surprise you.

Take Alabama. The state has some of the fastest growing metro areas in the country, including Mobile, which is projected to have the greatest change in “gross metropolitan product (GMP),” 34% between 2007-2012, according to research forecasts done for us by Moody’s Economy.com.

In Pictures: America’s Fastest-Growing Large And Small Metros

One boon to Alabama is ThyssenKrupp’s announcement last year to build a $3.7 billion steel plant in Mobile. And Huntsville–expected GMP growth 15% by 2012–has long been a hub for defense and space research. Since the mid-1990s, Alabama has also become a manufacturing center for automakers like DaimlerChrysler (nyse: DCX - news - people ), Toyota (nyse: TM - news - people ) and Hyundai.

“The automotive industry has been Alabama’s real growth industry in the last 15 years,” says Brian Hilson, president and CEO of Huntsville’s chamber of commerce.

Other metro areas, like Port St. Lucie and Palm Bay, are part of a growing biotech cluster in central Florida. Straddling Texas and Arkansas, Texarkana is seeing war-related development: Its Red River Army Depot is a major maintenance and storage facility for military equipment. And St. George, Utah, located about 120 miles from Las Vegas, has boomed in recent years as a destination for retirees.

All of them sit at or near the top of Forbes’ list of America’s fastest-growing metropolitan areas, places large and small that offer at least the promise of booming economies for years to come.

To compile our list, we looked at all of the country’s 363 metropolitan areas, defined by the U.S. Census Bureau has a geographic region with a “core urban area” of at least 50,000 people. Because many small metro areas are high growth–and because we wanted to show growth in large cities as well–we split the group into two classes: the largest 100 metro areas (with at least 528,000 people) and everyone else. We use projections run for us by Moody’s Economy.com to show growth in GMP between 2007-2012.

Of course, if one looks at economic growth in the country’s largest 100 metros, the usual suspects jump to the top of the list. With an estimated 32% GMP growth from 2007-2012, Austin, Texas, is the winner for big metros. Atlanta, Seattle, Orlando, Houston and San Jose, Calif., also appear high on the list. What do they all have in common? They’re tech hubs with proximity to universities and a healthy increase in population. Austin’s population, for example, is expected to increase by nearly 15% by 2012, according to Moody’s Economy.com forecasts.

Bruce Katz, director of the Metropolitan Policy Program at the Brookings Institution, says there are several factors to take into consideration when measuring the pulse of a metro area: innovation, human capital, infrastructure and the actual quality of a place.

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Tags: austin, austin real estate, buyers, downtown, economy, financing, investing, money, real estate, sellers, where to buy by Aria
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By Shonda Novak | Thursday, February 28, 2008, 12:47 PM

Work is expected to start in about a month on the $120 million BartonPlace condominium development on Barton Springs Road, after the project won unanimous City Council approval for a zoning change today, the developers said.

The 270-unit project will replace the Shady Grove Trailer Park on Barton Springs, behind Austin Java.

The developers are Larry Warshaw and Perry Lorenz of Constructive Ventures Inc., builders of the The Pedernales, Saltillo Lofts, TwentyOne24, and Este condo projects in East Austin. Constructive Ventures is partnering in BartonPlace with Rick Engel, co-owner of Austin Java, Little Woodrow’s, Paggi House and Uncle Billy’s.

The development team has signed a private agreement with the Zilker Neighborhood Association that will forever limit the development of the portion of the property that fronts Barton Springs Road, to help preserve the local businesses that make up Austin’s popular “restaurant row.”

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Tags: austin, austin real estate, building, buyers, condos, downtown, economy, investing, marketing, money, neighborhoods, real estate, urban living by Aria
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By Shonda Novak | Tuesday, February 26, 2008, 03:25 PM

Groundbreaking has been delayed for the condo project called 1155 Barton Springs, which is destined to replace the long-vacant Treehouse restaurant and nightclub at Dawson and Barton Springs Road.

Developers Elisabeth and Steffen Waltz and their partners had hoped to start construction on the project by the end of 2007. But yesterday, Elisabeth Waltz wrote in an email:

“These times seem to call for a measured approach. It may take us a few more months to start construction; we will start when we have 50% or more of the residences sold. (Personally, having been a real estate broker for many years, I would prefer all of them pre-sold).”

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Tags: austin, austin real estate, condos, downtown, economy, environment, financing, green, investing, neighborhoods, sellers, staging, urban living, where to buy by Aria
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FROM STAFF AND WIRE REPORTS
Friday, February 15, 2008 WASHINGTON — Median home prices fell in more than half of the nation’s 150 metropolitan areas during the October-December quarter, a real estate trade group said Thursday.

But fourth-quarter data from the National Association of Realtors show that Texas was largely unaffected by the price slump.

Only one metro area in the state, Beaumont-Port Arthur, posted a decline in median price for a single-family home, down 5.3 percent, when compared with the year-earlier quarter. The median price in the Austin-Round Rock area rose 6.4 percent, one of the best results in Texas, the trade group said.

Of the 150 metro areas, 77 experienced price declines, with 16 showing double-digit percentage drops, the trade group said. The largest price declines were in Lansing, Mich.; Sacramento, Calif.; Jackson, Miss.; and Riverside, Calif., which posted price declines of 17 percent to 19 percent.

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Tags: austin, buyers, financing, investing, money, sellers by Aria
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