May 2012

By Steve Brown-Dallas Morning News

Dallas-area home prices were up for the first time in more than 18 months in a closely-watched housing survey.

Prices in Dallas rose 1.5 percent in March from a year ago in the Standard & Poor's/Case-Shiller Home Price Index.

Dallas was one of seven U.S. markets in the monthly survey that saw year-over-year home price gains.

Nationwide prices continued to fall - down 2.6 percent from March 2011, according to Case-Shiller.

"There are now seven cities - Charlotte, Dallas, Denver, Detroit, Miami, Minneapolis and Phoenix - where the annual rates of change are positive," Standard & Poor's David M. Blitzer said Tuesday in the report. "This is what we need for a sustained recovery; monthly increases

By Janice Rombeck & Kelsey Lynn Lester-Perry

This summer, smokers enjoying a cup of coffee or a cocktail at a restaurant outdoor patio will not legally be able to light up.

The San Jose City Council voted unanimously to extend the ban on outdoor smoking to include outdoor patios, standing in line at ATMs or movie theaters and in common outdoor areas of apartment and condo complexes. (Keep in mind that the patio outside your sliding glass door is most times considered common outdoor areas for condo owners)

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Dallas Morning News- Steve Brown

The rebound in the North Texas housing market continued in April with a double-digit percentage rise in pre-owned home sales.

Local real estate agents sold more than 6,400 single-family homes last month, 11 percent more than in April 2011, according to numbers released Tuesday from the Real Estate Center at Texas A&M University and North Texas Real Estate Information Systems Inc.

And median home sales prices were up 9 percent from a year earlier.

It was the 10th month in a row that home sales were higher than in the same period of the previous year.

The biggest increases in sales this year have come for homes priced at more than $150,000. Those sales increases have caused overall median prices to

What’s Waivable?

Disclosures in a resale transaction is one of those important topics that needs to be discussed.

The Real Estate Division's Residential Disclosure Guide  RDG goes a long way in informing both sellers and buyers of the various disclosures that are required in a real estate transaction by federal, state and local law.

The elimination of the waiver of the SRPD form in 2011 was not so far-fetched when you consider all of the other non-waivable disclosures in federal and state law. (Note: the waiver of the buyer's remedies in NRS 113.150(6) is still intact, but the form cannot be waived.)

No other current disclosure is waivable, including: lead-based paint disclosure; construction defect disclosure (NRS 40); and the CIC resale

This week saw increasing uncertainty in Europe, leading to lower stock prices and strong demand for the US Treasury auctions. Ordinarily, these factors would result in improved mortgage rates, but mortgage rates ended the week nearly unchanged from last week.

In closely watched elections on Sunday, voters in France and Greece strongly favored the candidates who opposed austerity measures. The results confirmed that political opposition to austerity is strong in many countries, and there is growing disagreement about the best approach to solve Europe's problems. In Greece, the government struggled to reach a consensus, leaving in question the future of required austerity measures. EU officials threatened to withhold their next aid payment, and the

Increased concerns about the troubles in Europe had the biggest influence on mortgage rates this week. As usual, investors reacted by shifting to relatively safer assets including US mortgage-backed securities (MBS), and mortgage rates again ended the week a little lower.

Spain has been the focus in Europe recently, but issues emerged this week from more surprising sources. The President of France is behind after the first round of voting in his bid to be reelected, and his opponent is not a supporter of austerity measures. In addition, budget talks broke down in the Netherlands after seven weeks, without an agreement on cutting spending. With weak economic data coming from nearly every euro zone country except for Germany, many people are questioning