Tuesday Report, November 30, 2010 Special to the Texas Low Income Housing Information Service Dallas is the latest Texas city to discover a major problem in implementing ambitious plans to house the homeless: where to place them? Finding locations near public transit and jobs – and near neighborhoods willing to accommodate the poor, has also [...]

Tuesday Report, Nov. 23, 2010 Special to the Texas Low Income Housing Information Service Attorneys general from all 50 states have filed class action suits against major mortgage holders for using sloppy and fraudulent documents to press foreclosures. As national foreclosures rates drop, Texas rises: one in ten mortgage holders are now threatened with foreclosure. [...]

Tuesday Report, October 5, 2010 Special to the Texas Low Income Housing Information Service According to new census figures and despite drops in house prices, thirty-seven percent of US households pay more than 30 percent of their monthly income for shelter. The figures emerge among new stories of mortgage mismanagement centered on document generation. In [...]

Tuesday Report, September 21, 2010 Special to the Texas Low Income Housing Information Service Galveston’s shakers and movers have been informed by TDHCA that if they kill plans to rebuild 569 public housing units swiped out by Hurricane Ike, all the state’s federal recovery funds will be withheld. The notice underscores a legal agreement initiated [...]

Tuesday Report, July 20, 2010 Special to the Texas Low Income Housing Information Service The paradigm of unlimited growth is abandoned by Rust Belt cities that now cope with receding populations and “ghost neighborhoods.” City administrators ponder how to support over-extended infrastructures with shrinking tax bases. In Dallas, posh mansions are added to the foreclosure [...]

Tuesday Report, July 13, 2010 Special to the Texas Low Income Housing Information Service This week we learn that the major group defaulting on their mortgages are cleaver rich folks who simply write their negative equity off as tax loses and invest elsewhere. Meanwhile, the middle and lower income mortgage holders struggle to make payments. [...]

Tuesday Report, July 6, 2010 Special to the Texas Low Income Housing Information Service As the nation’s economy recalibrates from the heady days of the Bush II Administration, housing starts and sales continue to drop while foreclosures rise. In Texas, millions of federal dollars meant to convert foreclosed homes into dwellings for low-income households languish [...]

Tuesday Report, June 22, 2010 Special to the Texas Low Income Housing Information Service The theory that the cost of shelter is self-regulated by supply/demand is further discredited as low-income renters and homeowners pay dearly for roofs over their heads — despite the glut of vacant units on the market. A fresh Harvard study shows [...]

Tuesday Report, June 15, 2010 Special to the Texas Low Income Housing Information Services The bright blip in housing sales caused by the federal tax credit has an equally low dip in June. Homebuilders have anticipated the lagging sales and cut back on construction starts. The market continues to ebb and flow with the extended [...]

Tuesday Report, June 8, 2010 Special to the Texas Low Income Housing Information Service Class wars abound in Texas cities: San Antonio begins to press its homeless population out of downtown while razing older homes under capricious judgments of city inspectors. Meanwhile, Dallas contemplates bulldozing homes in its historic districts if they don’t pass muster [...]

Tuesday Report, June 1, 2010 Special to the Texas Low Income Housing Information Service The recession drags into a third year with mortgaged homeowners still folding under over-priced loans for over-priced homes. Stories from California and Memphis confirm the pattern; in Memphis aspiring African-Americans have been knocked from the middle class. Others foreclosure is stride [...]

Tuesday Report, May 25, 2010 Special to the Texas Low Income Housing Information Service Home sales are up, thanks to the tax credit boost, but defaults on prime loan mortgages are soaring. Analysts see no end to the sagging market in the short term. NIMBYs in Frisco have beaten out an affordable housing project and [...]

Tuesday Report, May 18, 2010 Special to the Texas Low Income Housing Information Service In the depths of the recession, homebuilders are touting a Second Real Estate Coming and throwing up thousands of new units – while thousands of repossessed and unsold units set vacant. In another peculiar market, builders are now selling condo bomb [...]

Tuesday Report, May 11, 2010 Special to the Texas Low Income Housing Information Service Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac continue to suck down federal bailout funds as the housing market stays flat. Already a target of conservatives who would disband the quasi-governmental corporations, the latest losses renew criticism. A new Brookings Institute study shows minorities [...]

Tuesday Report, May 4, 2010 Special to the Texas Low Income Housing Information Service Buyers rushing to take advantage of an expiring federal tax credit program created an up-tick in housing sales – and a surge of rosy, speculative stories nationwide. In Galveston, the state has found yet another way to delay awarding federal home [...]

Tuesday Report, April 27, 2010 Special to the Texas Low Income Housing Information Service The federal tax credit program for new home buyers is catching flack from the free market forces: the real estate industry now claims home sales would have risen anyway and that government intervention was a waste of taxpayer money. In Galveston, [...]

Tuesday Report, April 20, 2010 Special to the Texas Low Income Housing Information Service Charges have finally been filed against Goldman Sachs for creating bogus investment institutions that profited from the housing debacle. The Securities and Exchange Commission will face a tough legal defense in a complicated case as Goldman also mounts a campaign to [...]

Tuesday Report, April 13, 2010 Special to the Texas Low Income Housing Information Service The citizens of Farmers Branch will forfeit almost $4 million in legal fees that mounted as the municipality attempted to defend ordinances prohibiting renting housing to undocumented tenants. The city is also under fire for violations of the Open Records Act. [...]

Tuesday Report, April 6, 2010 Special to the Texas Low Income Housing Information Service Tight banking rules on refinancing homes is credited for saving Texas from the foreclosure debacle suffered by many other states. Under state law, lenders cannot refinance more than 80 percent of a property’s appraised value. San Antonio’s shakers and movers are [...]

Tuesday Report, March 30, 2010 The penalties of the over-priced, over-sold and over-mortgaged housing era of the Bush years continue to linger. Bank of America has finally begun to negotiate at-risk mortgages as the Obama Administration rolls out new incentives for other lenders to do the same. In San Antonio, we see a new scheme [...]

Tuesday Report, March 23, 2010 Special to the Texas Low Income Housing Information Service The press never quite gets it right, that’s why they print so often. The really gritty stories that are laden with bureaucratic policies and acronyms are relegated to cub reporters who must really hustle to please their city editors who in [...]

Tuesday Report, March 9, 2010 Special to the Texas Low Income Housing Information Service Everything that can be wrong with the housing industry is amplified in Detroit. As auto jobs evaporate, mortgage defaults soar and you can now buy a house for peanuts – but you better bring your own means to make a living. [...]

Tuesday Report, Feb. 16, 2010 Baited by the “American Dream,” thousands of struggling families were suckered by back-loaded mortgages and bloated appraisals. Now that the balloon has burst, the mortgage holders shun reasonable loan terms for refinancing while sharks feed on the desperate who fault on their payments. Wall Street bonuses flow like champagne at [...]

Tuesday Report, February 9, 2010 Special to the Texas Low Income Housing Information Service Southeast Fort Worth is once again the target of developers who tout they will convert the deteriorating sector into a thriving community. The relatively cheap land has attracted various builders through the years but all have succumbed to inadequate financing, a [...]

Tuesday Report, Feb. 2, 2010 Special to the Texas Low Income Housing Information Service News about housing policies took a back seat last week to political and environmental events as the Obama Administration seems challenged on all fronts. In Texas, Galveston continues to be the focus of cumbersome housing policies. The Galveston County Daily News [...]

Home construction and sales of existing homes sagged in December while revised federal programs toughened on riskier home loans but provided for earlier intervention for homeowners facing missed mortgage payments. Little relief is seen for the housing industry in the near-term while the general economy remains mired in recession. In Galveston, homeowners accuse lenders of [...]