WASHINGTON – Sales of existing homes rose from January to February in an unexpected boost for the slumping U.S housing market as buyers took advantage of deep discounts on foreclosures.

The National Association of Realtors said Monday that sales of existing homes grew 5.1 percent to an annual rate of 4.72 million last month, from 4.49 million units in January. It was the largest sales jump since July 2003.

Sales had been expected to fall to an annual pace of 4.45 million units, according to Thomson Reuters.

The median sales price plunged to $165,400, down 15.5 percent from $195,800 a year earlier. That was the second-largest drop on record.

February’s median sales price was up slightly from January, which recorded the lowest median price since September 2002. Prices are down about 28 percent from their peak in July 2006.

In contrast with the housing boom, when buyers took out ever-riskier loans and maxed out their home equity lines, “homebuyers are not over stretching” said Lawrence Yun, the Realtors’ chief economist. “They want to stay within their budget.”

By summertime, sales are expected to get a boost from a $8,000 tax credit for new home buyers included in the economic stimulus package signed by President Barack Obama last month.

The number of unsold homes on the market last month rose 5.2 percent to 3.8 million, a typical increase for the winter months. At February’s sales pace, it would take 9.7 months to rid the market of all of those properties, unchanged from a month earlier.

The bursting of the U.S. housing bubble has caused foreclosures to swamp the market — especially in particularly distressed states like California, Florida, Nevada and Arizona.

About 45 percent of sales nationwide are foreclosures or other distressed property sales, according to the Realtors group. Those properties typically sell for about 20 percent less than non-distressed homes.

That’s great news for buyers, who are paying the most attractive prices in years. Plus, interest rates have sunk to historic lows.

The Federal Reserve last week moved to reduce already low rates by printing $1.2 trillion and pumping it into the economy through the purchases of mortgage-backed securities and Treasury debt.

The central bank also will double its purchases of debt issued by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to $200 billion.

The Housing Stimulus Act sets out an entire package of provisions to stabilize the housing industry and help more Americans realize their dream of homeownership.

The legislation offers a window of opportunity for individuals and families to join the ranks of proud homeowners. While we are bombarded daily with stories about how bad the economy is, Tarrant County is still one of the most affordable home markets in the U.S. And, it’s really a buyer’s market.

The $7,500 federal tax credit is available right now to first-time homebuyers or buyers who have not owned a home for three years. Married couples who earn less than $150,000, and individuals who earn less than $75,000, qualify for the full $7,500 credit.

Our trade association represents more than 700 member companies involved in home building, remodeling, multi-family construction, property management, subcontracting, design, housing finance, building product manufacturing and other aspects of residential and light commercial construction.

Our Hammer and Nails Political Action Committee (PAC) is our Association’s political arm with members making it their business to advocate for their customers – and all homeowners – when government bureaucracies want to overregulate the housing industry. In order to try to balance their budgets, municipalities are adding more and more development and roadway fees – the results of which drive home prices higher and higher. You can count on our member companies of the builders association to be the voice of homebuyers everywhere.

Look for print ads and Web sites of homebuilders in the areas where you want to live. Spend the next few weekends attending the many open houses in beautiful new neighborhoods. Don’t wait so you will be able to subtract $7,500 from the taxes you will pay the IRS this year.

Dallas-Fort Worth added the most jobs of any U.S. metropolitan area during the 12 months ending in July, according to preliminary data released Wednesday by the U.S. Department of Labor.

Another Texas city, Houston, came in second. Dallas also edged out Houston in percentage growth.

“Houston had actually led Dallas since August 2005 through June of this year,” said Cheryl Abbot, a Labor Department economist in Dallas. “Now they’re both growing at about the same rate.”

Meanwhile, the nation as a whole lost 174,000 jobs, not seasonally adjusted, during the 12-month period. With the national economy slogging through an increasingly painful downturn, the outlook for the local job market over the next 12 months appears hazy.

“There’s definitely a slowdown,” Ms. Abbot said. “Job growth has slowed, and the [area] unemployment rate increased a little bit.”

Between July 2007 and July 2008, the Dallas-Fort Worth area added 68,000 nonfarm jobs, growing 2.3 percent – the highest growth rate among the nation’s 12 largest metropolitan areas.

Five of the 12 metro areas suffered job losses during that time.

Even looking at the 37 other U.S. metro areas with total nonfarm employment over 750,000 in 2007, only one grew more quickly than Dallas-Fort Worth – Charlotte, N.C., which saw a 3 percent growth rate.

After Dallas, the next best growth rates were in Houston, San Antonio and Seattle, Wash., which all posted growth of 2.2 percent between July 2007 and last month.

Houston trailed D-FW by more than 10,000 new jobs, adding 57,100 during the 12 months. Seattle grew by 38,900 jobs and Washington, D.C., created 35,400.

The job growth came against a backdrop of a 0.1 percent drop in U.S. employment, without adjusting for seasonal factors. (While the Labor Department adjusts national employment numbers for seasonal factors, it does not do the same for the metropolitan numbers.)

From a historical perspective, the Dallas-Fort Worth area’s job gains still fall below those of the mid- and late 1990s.

Back then, the area often generated more than 100,000 jobs in a 12-month period, and sometimes added more than 120,000 – or almost double the gains in the recent 12-month period. The annual job growth rate topped 5 percent for a time.

Since the 2001 recession, the area’s largest employment increase during a 12-month period came between May 2005 and May 2006, when it added 102,500 jobs.

The Dallas side of the area job market outweighed the Fort Worth side in the new numbers. Between July 2007 and July 2008, the Dallas region accounted for 71 percent of the area’s workforce and generated 76 percent of the new jobs, according to the Labor Department.

The Fort Worth side, with 29 percent of the workforce, added 24 percent of the new jobs.

Overall, the largest job gains in sheer numbers came in education and health services; government; and natural resources, mining and construction.

Economists say Texas is apt to continue outperforming the nation, thanks to strong exports, the state’s oil and gas activity and, perhaps most important, a relatively mild housing downturn.

But that doesn’t mean the state will be booming.

“Over the past year or so, a series of storms has broken out over the U.S. economy,” researchers Laila Assanie and Raghav Virmani wrote in another study appearing Wednesday, this one in Southwest Economy, a publication of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas.

“Texas entered 2008 with its economy on the wane, largely because of the drags from the nation’s slowing business activity,” they wrote. “During the first half of the year, more signs of weakness have emerged in Texas and the U.S., but the state is still doing better than the nation.”

Fort Worth still celebrates its colorful Western heritage that is deeply rooted in strong Southern influences. Fort Worth’s legendary “Western heritage” was made possible by settlers from the Old South looking for a new start. Fort Worth can be called a “gateway” to a cultural region, sometimes referred to as the “Western South.”

There are plenty of educational opportunities, progressive private schools, and excellent public schools. There are many universities within commuting distance as well as Fort Worth’s beautiful TCU campus. The Cultural District offers 3 world-class museums-The Amon Carter, Kimbell, and The Museum of Science & History which includes the Noble Planetarium and Omni Theatre. There are open parks, lush botanical gardens, the new world-class Bass Performance Hall, as well as plenty of horseback riding, hiking and bike trails. For the boating, swimming, or sailing enthusiast, there are multitudes of public lakes just a few minutes from any point in the Metroplex.

DISTRICTS
Downtown
Sundance Square – Fort Worth’s downtown has Sundance Square, named after the infamous Sundance Kid. Sundance Square is a 16 block entertainment center for the city. The Square has buildings with tall windows, as well as brick-paved streets and sidewalks, and landscaping that many consider to be very delightful. Many restaurants, nightclubs, boutiques, museums, live theatres, cineplex movie theaters, and art galleries are in the Square.
Fort Worth Water Gardens – A 4.3 acre/1.74 ha contemporary park, designed by architect Philip Johnson, that features three unique pools of water offering a calming and cooling oasis for downtown patrons. The gardens were used in the finale of the 1970s sci-fi film Logan’s Run. (In mid-2004 the Water Gardens had to be closed due to a drowning. It has reopened after preventive measures have been installed.)
Fort Worth Convention Center – Includes an 11,200 seat multi-purpose arena.
Bass Performance Hall – Bass Hall is the permanent home to the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra, Texas Ballet Theater, Fort Worth Opera, and the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition and Cliburn Concerts.

Fort Worth Stockyards Historic District
The stockyards offer a taste of the old west and the Chisholm Trail at the site of the historic cattle drives and rail access. The District is filled with restaurants, clubs, gift shops and attractions such as daily longhorn cattle drives through the streets, historic reenactments, the Texas Cowboy Hall of Fame and Billy Bob’s, the world’s largest country and western music venue.

Cultural district
The Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, founded in 1892, is the oldest art museum in Texas. Its permanent collection consists of some 2,600 works of post-war art. In 2002, the museum moved into a new home designed by Japanese architect Tadao Ando.
The Kimbell Art Museum houses works from antiquity to the 20th century. Artists represented in its holdings include Caravaggio, Fra Angelico, Picasso, Matisse, Cézanne, El Greco, and Rembrandt. The museum’s home was designed by American architect Louis Kahn.
The Amon Carter Museum focuses on 19th and 20th century American artists. It houses an extensive collection of works by Western artists Frederic Remington and Charles M. Russell, as well as an impressive collection of 30,000 exhibition-quality photographs. It also includes works by Alexander Calder, Thomas Cole, Stuart Davis, Thomas Eakins, Winslow Homer, Georgia O’Keeffe, John Singer Sargent, and Alfred Stieglitz. American architect Philip Johnson designed the museum’s home, including its expansion.
The National Cowgirl Museum and Hall of Fame is the only museum in the world that is solely dedicated to honoring women of the American West who have demonstrated extraordinary courage and pioneer spirit in their trail blazing efforts.
The Fort Worth Museum of Science and History – One of the largest Science and History Museums in the Southwest. It includes the Noble Planetarium and the Omni Theater.
Will Rogers Memorial Center – a multi-purpose entertainment complex and world-class equestrian center housed under 45 acres of roof spread over 85 acres in the heart of the Fort Worth Cultural District. Each year approximately 800,000 people attend the three week event known as the Southwestern Exposition and Livestock Show, formerly called the Fort Worth Stock Show & Rodeo.

Parks district
Fort Worth Zoo – Ranked one of the top 10 best zoos in the United States.
Fort Worth Botanic Garden – The oldest botanic garden in Texas, with 21 specialty gardens and over 2,500 species of plants.

Visit www.fortworth.com

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Visit www.ci.weatherford.tx.us

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Joshua residents are close enough to the Metroplex to enjoy the benefits of the city, yet far enough away to enjoy the rural setting. This gives Joshua residents the best of both worlds.

Visit www.cityofjoshuatx.us

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Embracing the northern shoreline of Benbrook Lake, Benbrook affords outstanding recreational amenities, while only minutes away from area attractions such as Fort Worth’s cultural and historic districts. Leisure opportunities within and around Benbrook’s borders include boating, camping, fishing, golfing, horse and hiking trails, sailing, swimming and water skiing at Benbrook Lake.

Other amenities include the Community Center/YMCA with an indoor climbing wall and pool, Castle Park playground, and Dutch Branch Park, featuring ball fields and courts for basketball, tennis and volleyball.

The city grew steadily since its creation in the mid-1800’s, but experienced a tremendous building boom between 1974 and 1985, with a 90 percent increase in the number of single family houses built and a 40-fold increase in the number of multifamily units built. There is a wealth of reasonably priced homes in the area, with a median price of about $130,000, as well as newer construction on much larger homes in the $300,000 and upwards range.

Visit www.ci.benbrook.tx.us

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Attractions:
Layland Museum
Cleburne has its own museum, The Layland Museum. Johnson County historical relics, early Texana, comprehensive Indian artifacts dating from pre-Columbian cultures, fossils, and genealogy records. Open Mon. – Fri. 10 a.m. – 5 p.m.; Sat. 9 a.m. – 1 p.m. In handsome 1904 Carnegie Library, 201 N. Caddo.

The theater group here is called the Carnegie Players. There are several City fests in Cleburne, such as: May fest, Spring fest, or Oktoberfest. There are many active Girl and Boy Scout groups. The Boy Scouts have yearly Pinewood Derby races with wooden cars. The Girl Scouts have yearly celebrations called Favorite Fellow Day where all the Girl Scout troops come bring food , share food, provide troop-made entertainment, and bring their ‘Favorite Fellow’, usually their dad.

Splash Station

Splash Station is now the premiere venue for aquatic recreation in Johnson County. This state of the art facility, located in Cleburne’s historic Hulen Park, is surrounded by several stately trees, walking trails (approx. 1 mile), pavilions & Buffalo Creek. The Aquatics Center features two pools: an 8 lane, 25 yard fitness pool with two 1 meter diving boards; and a zero-entry leisure pool. The fitness pool is designed for year-round use; it is covered with an air-dome…so you can enjoy a warm day at the pool no matter what the weather is outside — you’ve got to see it! The leisure pool incorporates two large slides, a vortex pool, current channel, spray ground, and an interactive play feature. For the little ones, a zero-entry toddler dish pool with a cushioned whale fountain feature, is just right.

Antique Alley

We have a semi-annual event called “Antique Alley”. The downtown streets of Cleburne to FM 4 are full of antiques, Collectibles, arts, crafts, food, entertainment and more.

The Sale is normally held the third full weekends of April and September. For more information you can access the website at www.myantiquealley.com

Cleburne Sports Complex

Located at 900 AllStar Parkway, Cleburne, TX. Designed for the sports-minded youth, the new complex provides a variety of fields where young people can demonstrate good sportsmanship while receiving quality sport instruction.

The sports complex consists of 7 Baseball fields, 2 Football fields, and 20 Soccer fields. Other features include 4 Concession stands, 4 sets of restrooms, and generous parking grounds.

Funds for construction of this project are from the 4B Sales Tax which was passed in August 2001. Estimated cost is $7 million dollars.

Cleburne State Park

498 scenic acres offering camping, picnicking, rest rooms and showers, group camp facilities, fishing, swimming, boat rentals, groceries, trailer facilities, and hiking trails. Park contains a wildlife refuge and 116-acre Cedar Lake; 12 miles southwest of Cleburne, U.S. 67, Park Rd. 21. Admission.

Lake Pat Cleburne

1,550-acre municipal lake owned by city of Cleburne. Locally popular for water sports including fishing, swimming, skiing, power boating and sailing. Several lakeside service facilities for boatmen and anglers. About 5 miles west of Cleburne via U.S. 67; also accessible from Glen Rose.

Visit www.ci.cleburne.tx.us

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If you long for simpler, less stressful living, come explore the quiet community of Aledo. Many Aledo homes for sale offer you the opportunity to keep your own horses. Experience the pleasure of taking a leisurely ride across the countryside with equestrian property in Aledo. This horse-friendly city boasts a thriving equestrian community, with quality horseback riding instruction, boarding services and tack shops available throughout the area.

Visit www.aledo-texas.com

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There are endless reasons why one considers buying a home or property in the city of Burleson TX. Burleson is one of the rapid-growing cities in the country, productively and economically. The population has seen a rise in the last decade as people are trying to move their bases in the city.

Visit www.burlesontx.com

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