Houston Has Some of the Nation’sNewest Housing

• Houston is among a number of Texas cities to rank high on the list of metros with the newest housing stock.

• With 11.81 percent of its housing stock built since 2005, the Houston-Sugar Land-Baytown area ranks No. 10 on the list Business Journals’ “On Numbers” compiled from U.S. Census Bureau data. The list compares the top 100 markets nationwide, and the most recent data available is from 2010.

• Austin-Round Rock-San Marcos tops the list with 14.97 percent of its housing built since 2005, McAllen-Edinburg-Mission is No. 2 with 14.96 percent, San Antonio-New Braunfels is No. 8 with 12.12 percent, and Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington is No. 17 with 10.09 percent.

• Meanwhile, 23.02 percent of Houston’s housing stock was built before 1970, ranking it No. 86 by that measurement.

Mortgage Rates Hit New Low• Mortgage rates hit record lows in the week ending June 7, with the

30-year fixed-rate mortgage average declining to 3.67% from 3.75% in the prior week, Freddie Mac said Thursday in its weekly report.

• The rate was 4.49% a year earlier.

• "Fixed mortgage rates reached new record lows for the sixth consecutive week as long-term Treasury bond yields declined further following downwardly revised economic growth and job creation data," said Frank Nothaft, Freddie Mac's chief economist.

• The 15-year fixed-rate mortgage also hit a record low in the most recent week, falling to 2.94% from 2.97% in the prior week.

• Meanwhile, the average rate on the 5-year Treasury-indexed hybrid adjustable-rate mortgage remained at 2.84%.

• The 1-year Treasury-indexed ARM rose to 2.79% from 2.75%.

Weekly HAR Market StatMarket metrics are in the midst of seasonal peaks and valleys this time of year. Listings, sales and prices all tend to reach pinnacles on the historical trend line, while market times generally take a dip to annual lows. Summer is historically an exciting time for real estate. Between vacations to see family and friends and the crush of wedding weekends, Americans manage to find the time to buy and sell real estate. The last several years have been rough, no doubt, but an undeniable gleam has returned to the marketplace this year, and summer brings with it a certain extra swoon.

In the Houston region, for the week ending June 17: • New Listings decreased 0.6% to 2,383

• Pending Sales increased 35.1% to 1,762• Closed Sales increased 7.4% to 1,414

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