 "Photo: Andrew Rogers; The Daily Texan")
Texas supports the healthiest housing market in the nation, said Gov. Rick Perry in his address to the Texas Association of Builders at the Capitol on Wednesday.
Association members want legislators to facilitate housing growth by building affordable entry-level housing, lowering property taxes and supporting grassroots action.
Amid the national housing crisis, one out of every 76 mortgages in Nevada is being foreclosed, Perry said. By comparison, imminent foreclosure threatens only one out of 967 mortgages in Texas, and Austin is generating more home building activity than Chicago, a city with four times Austin’s population.
“Texas hasn’t experienced the same drop in housing as other states,” Perry said. “Texas is the best place to be a builder, realtor or homeowner.”
Members of the Texas Association of Builders, which addresses housing issues in Texas, gathered to rally legislators to push for the growth of Texas’ housing industry.
Association president Ron Connally said the housing industry injects $35 billion into the Texas economy annually and creates more than 500,000 jobs, making it important for legislation to foster and support further growth.
“We need legislation that helps — rather than hurts — the housing industry,” Connally said.
Perry reiterated the need for growth, explaining that Texas’ population is growing by 1,000 people per week.
“We need to keep building homes so that people can keep moving into the great state of Texas. The state needs to be able to accommodate newcomers,” Perry said.
Builder Magazine recently ranked Austin as the second healthiest housing market for 2009, but Mechele Dickerson, School of Law chairwoman and housing crisis expert at UT, said Texas’ fortunate position is not cause for celebration.
“Texas is not immune to the housing crisis,” she said. “Foreclosure rates are up in Texas, and people are having just as hard a time paying mortgages as other states. Texas is just lucky that it hasn’t been as catastrophically affected.”
Real estate companies, an integral component of the housing industry, are feeling the effects of the housing crisis. Scott Turner, owner of Turner Residential and Riverside Homes, said houses are taking longer to sell.
Turner said he is relieved, however, that his 3.5-percent decline in sales is not equal to the 20-percent decline seen in other states’ sales.
President Barack Obama’s stimulus package has allocated $275 billion dollars to counter mortgage defaults, foreclosures and plummeting home values. Perry acknowledged the work that the association is doing to aid the support and growth of the housing industry at the state level.
“You folks are not only creating jobs for Texans but helping to maintain the American dream,” he said.
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