Texas has a lower unemployment rate than most states, and nearly 2 percent below the national average of -- still -- 9.7 percent. Our housing market here has also not experienced the shakeup going on around the country. Reports the Washington Post:
It's one of the great mysteries of the mortgage crisis: Why did Texas -- Texas, of all places! -- escape the real estate bust? Only a dozen states have lower mortgage foreclosure and default rates, and all of them are rural places such as Montana and South Dakota, where they couldn't have a real estate boom if they tried. Texas's 3.1 million mortgage borrowers are a breed of their own among big states with big cities. Fewer than 6 percent of them are in or near foreclosure, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association; the national average is nearly 10 percent.
The land in Texas might look an awful lot like its Sun Belt sisters Arizona (with 13 percent of its borrowers in foreclosure) or Nevada (19 percent) -- flat and generous in letting real estate developers sprawl where they will. Texas was even the home base of two of the nation's biggest bubble-era homebuilders, Centex and D.R. Horton. Texan subprime borrowers do especially well compared with their counterparts elsewhere. The foreclosure rate among subprime borrowers in Texas, at less than 19 percent, is the lowest of any state except Alaska.
Part of the reason is that Texas didn't experience the stratospheric run-ups in home prices that other states did. On average, the home-resale prices of the 20 metro areas in the Case-Shiller Home Price Index peaked in 2006 after more than doubling since 2000. In Dallas, one of the 20 areas, they rose just 25 percent, gradually, and have barely declined. But there is a broader secret to Texas's success, and Washington reformers ought to be paying very close attention. If there's one thing that Congress can do to help protect borrowers from the worst lending excesses that fueled the mortgage and financial crises, it's to follow the Lone Star State's lead and put the brakes on "cash-out" refinancing and home-equity lending.
No wonder places like California and Michigan are losing residents, and Texas in gaining residents.
9 comments:
The main reason? Easy. We had a crook, from Texas, that was able to team up with another big oil guy, and start a war, based on lies, in the oil basket of the world. SURPRISE! Oil goes from under $20/bbl to over $140. With Texas oil, and all the big defense contractors there, now wonder you are doing well. Too bad it took a major recession for the rest of the country, for your prosperity. Bush's 'big oil' contributors made the best investment of all time. Too bad it's blood money. You Texans should be SO proud.
Bottom line. The Texas people 'made a killing', while the Texas prez was 'killing people'.
The oil industry is a much smaller part of the Texas economy than it used to be. Of course, if either of my commenters had bothered to know that, or even read the article, then they would have seen how biased their views are.
How come I have to attract the crazy left?
That's it? You Texan's inflict the 'moron from Midland' upon us, who wrecked the economy in SO many ways, and your answer is? "The oil industry is much smaller than it used to be." You should be on your knees begging forgiveness, not bragging that your (oil) economy profitted from the rest of the country. Of course my view's biased. I saw what that crook did to us.
Fam guy. Why don't you take your BDS somewhere else. You don't want to comment, you want to cry and rant. It's Bush's fault! It's Bush's fault! Everything is Bush's fault!
You're still so wrapped up in "It's Bush's Fault!" that you can't see what's going on around you. Probably because you don't care.
If you come back with one more "It's Bush's Fault," I'll delete you.
My Blog. My Delete button.
Of course, it's your delete button and you can do with it what you will. BUT, it's hard for me to see you flaunt the Texas economy and compare it to Michigan, when we all know what happened to Detroit when oil spiked, and WHY it spiked. That said, you are one of the more informed right wing bloggers out there. You are just 'too close' to TX politics for a good overview.
Why shouldn't I compare TX to MI? I'm from Michigan, I have family in Michigan, and I have just traveled to Michigan. And I see a difference. Oil had nothing to do with Detriot's downfall. Detroit did.
Now for some of your more illogical statements:
It's amazing that one can assume I'm too close to TX politics for a good overview. That's assuming what you don't know. Be careful of that.
Texas oil is not blood money. It's oil.
Texas didn't inflict anyone on you. Bush was elected in a national election -- twice.
You wrote: "Too bad it took a major recession for the rest of the country, for you properity." I can't think of anything more hate-filled. So even though we (Texas) are also in a recession (unemployment doubled), your mad at us because we're doing better? this is to typically leftist. If someone is doing better than someone else, bring down the one doing better so both are equal.
This is what our country is becoming today: individual accomplishment is no longer appreciated or wanted.
I give up. You win. If you can look at the Big Oil boys taking the price of of oil from under $20, to over $140, and say, 'Oil had nothing to do with Detroit's downfall', you obviously don't have a clue about economic reality, and I'm wasting my time here, trying to inject rationality into your rants.
Oh, and one other thing, it's really funny how you changed 'Bush denial syndrome', to work for you. Anyone who can deny the facts of 2000-2008, with all the big oil money decisions, war based on lies, and the mantra of 'deregulation' to allow the few, to profit from changes in the financial system that wrecked our economy, then blame it on Obama, has such an anal-cranial inversion that reality left, long ago.
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