If enough people said “no” to the appraisal board and then the mediator and took it to court things might happen. Until then, well, everyone seems content to accept a 5% increase because they think it’s better than a 15% increase and each year everyone ends up with higher valuation which in the end as we are seeing finally is really overvaluation when the market no longer supports the valuation.

But you can’t tell HCAD that because HAR backs HCAD up. A judge, or two, might put a stop to it finally.

Some believe it is actually going to get substantially worse.

Housing powered the economy during the boom. Now only the economy can power housing. Despite all the happy talk, no one who’s not trying to sell you stocks or real estate is saying that it is going to get substantially better anytime soon.

But anecdotal evidence of our market and Texas in general, developers are beginning to position themselves for new projects in the single family housing market.

Just from the firm I work at, we have a client wanting master planning on over 1000 acres just north of Austin. This would mean new construction would be available in about 2-3 years in Austin.

Clients with unfinished utility districts all around Houston are moving forward with new projects (which means house construction would be about 1.5 years away for our region).

DFW is a little slower. It’s partially due to the the vast amounts of smaller municipalities that permitted new developments across the area. It’s hard to keep track of all the new projects during the bubble so many developers couldn’t properly estimate the supply coming online. This is much easier in the Houston, San Antonio, and Austin markets.

San Antonio is expected to be the quickest rebounding metro of Texas from discussions with various analysts and developers mainly because the housing supply wasn’t produced in excess in the region.

Our workload is slowly building for land development projects while the public works sector has already taken a prominent role in pushing projects needing work to be performed.

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Much lower or just more hidden?

I believe Houston has become diverse enough and is dynamic enough that this won’t be a major problem here beyond anecdotal sob stories. I could be wrong about that, and that’s why I wish lenders were allowed to offer an option of a non-recourse loan in addition to the standard recourse loan.

Negative Equity isn’t bad if you plan to live in the home for a long time and you don’t look at the property as a potential quick turn around investment.