How will the foreclosure settlement actually affect the housing market?
Excerpts from an article posted on Forbes.com titled How The $25 Billion Foreclosure Settlement Will Really Affect The Housing Market:
The Department of Justice announced that its 16 month-long investigation into bank-related foreclosure abuses, following the robo-signing debacle of fall 2010, has culminated in a $25 billion mortgage relief plan aimed at helping homeowners.
News About McVaugh Custom Homes
McVaugh Custom Homes has completed construction in the community of Rodeo Palms in Manvel (just past Pearland) on 3 spec homes and will be starting construction this month on two new spec townhomes in the community of East Shore in The Woodlands.
View East Shore Floor Plans:
News About Courtland Building Company
Courtland Building Company just closed on the construction loan to start the Leach Residence for Marisa and Chip Leach,to be located on River Lake Road in the newest Section of FulBrook, in Fulshear, in Fort Bend County.
Mr. Brent Adams Handled the Construction loan for Prosperity Bank and the Closing was held at the Offices of Mr. John Hammond of First American Title Company.
The home is to be located on an Acreage lot with large pecan and oak trees, backing to an oxbow lake, just down the street from the FulBrook River Lodge, FulBrooks new
Top 10 signs of a good builder
Building a new home can be fun and relatively stress free if a person has chosen #1 a good builder and # 2 if they are a good buyer!
Here are the top 10 signs of a good builder:
- Has experience. Find out how long your builder has been in business. It says something if he has been in business a long time. You’ll never go wrong going with an established builder who has “been there, done that.”
- Is flexible. Whether it’s a starter home or an expensive custom home you should get what you want. That’s why you’re buying new. Make sure you do – from the colors to the style. Does your builder allow your input on drafting, colors and allowances? Make sure you cando “change orders” if you want to and find out how they are handled.
Single-family starts are up
According to CNN Money, new home construction slowed slightly in December after a strong November showing, but was still much more active than a year earlier.
In the article, the Census Bureau reported that housing starts fell to 657,000 on an annual basis, down just 4.1% compared with a strong November. Building permits, which are less affected by weather than starts, came in at a 679,000 annual rate, about the same as a month earlier.
CEO of CB/USA Bill Smithers Interviewed on Fine Homebuilding
Fine Homebuilding interviewed CB/USA CEO Bill Smithers who has taken his company’s innovative purchasing concept to custom and independent builders nationwide, providing them with powerful business systems, superior knowledge and market strength that they could not have enjoyed on their own.
In the interview he talks about the benefits of joining CB/USA as a builder and as a vendor:
Houston ranked No. 19
According to a report by the Brookings Institution, Houston not only beat every other large metropolitan area in the U.S. in terms of the world’s fastest-growing economies, but it also topped all other large metropolitan areas in the eastern hemisphere.
American Voters Value Homeownership
Taken from: NAHB (National Association of Home Builders) Voters Place High Value on Homeownership, Oppose Policies That Make It More Difficult to Own a Home
By an overwhelming margin, American voters strongly value homeownership and would oppose efforts to weaken or eliminate the mortgage interest deduction or diminish a federal role to help qualified home buyers obtain affordable 30-year mortgages, according to a new nationwide survey gauging likely voters’ attitudes towards homeownership and housing policy issues.
5 Tips on How to Deal with Difficult Clients
The contributing Editor for HousingZone.com, Susan Bady posted an article on how to prevent problems with clients by helping them set their expectations right from the beginning.
In her article, she explains that all custom builders encounter difficulties with clients at one time or another. Unfortunately, since the housing crash, clients are getting aggravated about more than a day of inactivity on the job site or a window detail that doesn’t look the way they pictured it. Some smell blood in the water and focus only on securing the lowest bid. Others want an unreasonable amount of control over the process.
