We keep hearing from the pathetic partisan hacks on the Left how bad the economy is, and how it is all the fault of the Republicans I wonder if they are planning on ignoring two articles from todayÂ’s Houston Chronicle.

After all, one tells us that the “slumping housing market” down here is really booming – and that new home sales are outstripping the number of new homes being built.

Houston-area builders are selling more homes than they're building, leading to a shrinking supply of new homes on the market.
That's according to the latest survey by Metrostudy, a national consulting company that tracks housing.

Housing starts dropped year-over-year 28 percent to around 34,500 during the 12 months ending in March. But builders closed on 39,880 homes during the same period.

In the first quarter, the area's new housing supply fell to 2.7 months, meaning it would take that long to sell all the finished homes on the market based on prior sales activity. That's an amount experts consider stable, according to Metrostudy.

Brian Binash, president of the Greater Houston Builders Association and Wilshire Homes, said builders have scaled back so much that he's anticipating a shortage of homes as early as this summer.

The shrinking inventory, combined with low interest rates and continued job growth, could lead to higher prices if demand spikes.

"If you're thinking of waiting until this summer or later, I wouldn't," Binash said.
Prices already rose in the first quarter.

The median price of a new home was $202,287, up 15 percent over last year.

Yes, there are fewer homes being built – but I suspect that has something to do with the predictions made over the last few months that we were entering a weak housing market. I’d have to say those predictions were wrong.

And then there is this other story, about the reality that the Texas economy is booming and setting records in tax receipts.

The nation may be on the verge of a recession, but the Texas economy is doing well enough for Comptroller Susan Combs to predict Tuesday that the Legislature will have a $10.7 billion surplus when it convenes in January.

Much of the extra money can be attributed to record oil prices. While motorists are being socked with ever-increasing gasoline costs, oil and gas employment in Texas has been booming, the comptroller's office reported.

If Combs' early forecast holds up, Gov. Rick Perry would like to return part of the money to the taxpayers in the form of tax cuts or rebate checks, spokesman Robert Black said. But those steps would need legislative action.

Oil and gas employment in Texas grew by 7.5 percent between March 2007 and March 2008, leading an overall increase of 214,000 Texas jobs, comptroller's spokesman R.J. DeSilva said.

Consequently, sales tax revenue, a major source of state government income, also continues to grow.

And, DeSilva added, Texas has been insulated more than other states from the sub-prime mortgage lending crisis. Texas, he said, avoided the housing price bubbles that hurt states like California and Florida.

Now I would disagree with the notion of returning all of that money in the form of tax cuts – there are a number of infrastructure projects that could be helped along, and a substantive improvement in teacher salaries and/or health insurance is also in order, since Texas lags behind other states in these areas. But the fact that we have a surplus of $10.7 billion should be seen as one more indication of robust economic health – and make it difficult for the Democrats to poor-mouth their way to victory in this fall’s elections.

Just remember, folks – Democrat leaders say this economic news is all the fault of Republicans, and that Democrats have nothing to do with it. Seems to me that one would therefore have to be a real jackass to vote for the Democrats this fall, given that we are in a GOP sponsored boom economy!

Posted by: Greg at 09:31 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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