Rep. John Culberson (R-TX) sent out a tweet this morning with a link to an old article (Feb 2008) from Politico that discusses the economic and demographic differences between Texas and Ohio. Namely that Ohio is dying while Texas is thriving.
From Rep. Culberson: ” Texas and Houston show strength of free people making free choices in a free market”
From the article:
Yet despite its large working-class population, Texas — unlike places such as Cleveland and the coastal states — has not suffered significantly from the housing foreclosure crisis.
Six months after this article was written, and — if anything — the disparity has only grown.
While I was visiting my family in deep East Texas this weekend (my parents own a condo in Beaumont and my younger brother and his clan live on the outskirts of the city), my mom showed me an article from the local newspaper that boasted of Beaumont’s high home equity rate.
In fact, that it was the highest in the nation.
Forbes.com released its list of U.S. Cities with the Most Home Equity.
Beaumont was No. 1 on the list. The Web site said Beaumont property owners have the highest home equity in the country, or 75 percent of their properties’ value. Average home equity in Beaumont was listed as $76,458, according to Forbes.
“This means that over the past few years, our area has experienced slow and healthy appreciation in property values,” said Dana Johnson, a Coldwell Banker Southern Homes real estate agent and president-elect of the Beaumont Board of Realtors. “Homes here have a much better resale value.”
Two other Texas cities were also in the Top 5 in the nation: Corpus Christie and El Paso.
It would certainly be interesting to see the predominant loan types that were made in Beaumont, Corpus and El Paso and the age of these loans. It would be nice to see that the majority are fixed rate as opposed to interest only or option ARMs in these areas. Otherwise, all 3 areas could become adversely affected when the loans begin adjusting IF slow appreciation doesn’t continue. For now, that is wonderful news.
Saying that, I’m surprised El Paso remains in the Top 5 given the propensity for loan fraud there.
Left by pam on August 11th, 2008 at 8:42 am