Dallas-area homes have become more affordable

By STEVE BROWN / The Dallas Morning News
Falling home prices and mortgage rates have made Dallas-Fort Worth even more affordable for residential buyers.

At the end of 2008, more than 67 percent of the homes sold in the D-FW area were affordable for residents earning the area’s median family income, according to a new report by the National Association of Home Builders.

That’s the D-FW area’s highest affordability ranking in four years.

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Obama Unveils Plan to Stem Foreclosures

President Barack Obama rolled out a bold $75 billion, three-part plan Wednesday to halt the soaring rate of mortgage foreclosures nationwide, one that seeks to encourage refinancing of homes now worth less than their mortgages and provides incentives for lenders to lower the debt load on struggling homeowners.

The Homeowner Stability Initiative, which Obama unveiled in Phoenix, seeks to address one of the triggers of the global financial crisis: the 2.3 million U.S. foreclosures last year that are protracting the housing crisis and helping to drive down home prices across the nation.

Specifically, the Obama plan seeks to provide low-cost refinancing for as many as 5 million Americans. It seeks to help delinquent or at-risk borrowers get their mortgages modified so that no more than 31 percent of their income is tied up in their mortgages. And it provides financial incentives to lenders and even a new insurance program to promote more mortgage modifications.

Like the failed efforts under the Bush administration, however, the Obama plan doesnÂ’t compel banks and other lenders to modify troubled mortgages. Instead, it provides a menu of incentives that may or may not prove sufficient.

Banks joined two prior voluntary efforts during the Bush administration _ Hope for Homeowners and the Federal Housing AdministrationÂ’s FHA Secure _ but these efforts have resulted in relatively few mortgage modifications.
Now theyÂ’ll have a stick waved at them if they donÂ’t comply with the subsidy plan. It will come in the form of ObamaÂ’s support for legislation pending in Congress that would allow bankruptcy court judges to modify the terms of a mortgage.

That’s forbidden right now, and banks and other lending institutions fiercely oppose what they call “cram down” legislation, warning that it’ll bring uncertainty for lenders, who will respond by restricting mortgage lending.
Banks may soon have to choose between the lesser of two evils. They could either modify loans - with a subsidy - to provide lower lending rates, and lose what they might have made from the higher lending rate over the life of the loan. Or they can do nothing and run the risk that a homeowner could file for bankruptcy and then have a judge order new loan terms that allow the borrower to stay in the home - and pay the lender less money.

The presidentÂ’s plan also offers payments to mortgage servicers, who collect mortgage payments on behalf of investors who own the mortgages originally issued by banks but were sold into a secondary market. Servicers apparently would be offered a payment for modification on par with what they would collect in the case of foreclosure.

Source

Study finds Dallas-Fort Worth home prices up 2%

By STEVE BROWN / The Dallas Morning News
What home price decline?

Most recent studies show home prices in Dallas-Fort Worth decreased slightly last year, but a new report disagrees.

First American CoreLogic Inc. says in its latest study that home prices in the D-FW area were up almost 2 percent at the end of 2008 compared with a year earlier.

Nationwide prices were down 11.1 percent, according to the same report.

The study released Wednesday runs counter to others that say median home sales prices fell here in 2008.

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American Airlines To Add MD-80 Between Pittsburgh and DFW

American Airlines will add MD-80 service between Pittsburgh International and Dallas-Fort Worth International, effective June 12.”The Pittsburgh—Dallas/Fort Worth market has proven to be a strong performer for American Airlines, so we’re delighted to be able to add some larger jet aircraft on flights to and from our largest hub,” said Walter Aue, American’s Vice President - Capacity Planning. “Our 140-seat MD80s offer 16 seats in First Class, so that also provides our Pittsburgh customers the opportunity to upgrade to a premium cabin.”

Source

Pieces of Texas Meteorite Found

from Associated Press

DALLAS  —  Two samples of fresh material the “size of large pecans” from a meteor that alarmed numerous residents when it streaked across the Texas sky on Sunday have been found by two University of North Texas astronomers in a pasture east of the small town of West.

“The pieces that we found have beautiful ablation crust. And it’s black like charcoal. Underneath this crust the color of the rock is concrete like gray,” said Ron DiIulio, director of the planetarium and astronomy lab program at the University of North Texas in Denton.

DiIulio and Preston Starr, UNT’s observatory manager, said they found the pieces Wednesday about 5 p.m. after starting their search from Fort Worth at 3 a.m. using calculations from all of the calls they had received.

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Dallas-Fort Worth area ready to ante for transportation?

By MICHAEL A. LINDENBERGER / The Dallas Morning News
North Texas officials have been saying for years that residents here would willingly pay more taxes if only they could get better roads and expanded rail service. If a bill introduced Monday becomes law, they may finally get to test their theory.

The bill would permit counties in Texas’ largest urban areas to hold elections in which voters would be asked to pay higher taxes or fees, or both, to fund transportation projects. Most of the money would go to rail, though such cities as Dallas and Richardson, where residents already pay for transit through higher sales taxes, could use the money for highway projects, too.

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