By Kelly Greene
From The Wall Street Journal Online

Reverse mortgages used to be a way for homeowners to get extra cash during retirement. Now they’re also being used for a more-pressing purpose: helping people who are struggling to meet payments on high-interest-rate loans to keep their homes.

The strategy, which is relatively novel but gaining popularity among legal-aid attorneys and housing advocates around the country, calls for persuading lenders to take the cash generated by a reverse mortgage in lieu of foreclosing on older homeowners.

With a reverse mortgage, the bank makes payments to the homeowner instead of the homeowner making payments to a bank. The loan is repaid, with interest, when the borrower sells the house, moves out permanently or dies. The products are complex and have high fees — typically about 7% of the home’s value — and they make it difficult for homeowners to leave the property to their heirs. But they may be the best option for people who have built up equity in their home and would otherwise lose it. (more…)

Average and median single-family home sales prices are on the rise

HOUSTON — (December 18, 2007) — While much of the nation wrestles with the persistent effects of the real estate market downturn, Houston continues to hold its own when it comes to home sales and prices as the end of 2007 nears. The latest monthly housing figures compiled by the Houston Association of REALTORS® (HAR) reflect comparative stability, with area sales and pricing performance still outpacing that recorded in 2005.

Total property sales for November registered 5,772, representing a modest 10.2 percent decline compared to November 2006. Properties sold during the month totaled $1.1 billion, a 4.7 percent decrease compared to last year’s $1.2 billion in November sales. Additionally, the average single-family home price for November rose 6.4 percent from last November to $205,815, while the median home price for a single-family home increased 1.7 percent to $150,000. (more…)

Mixed-use venue in Brookshire will welcome Santa, snow on Saturday

By KAREN HASTINGS
Chronicle Correspondent

Standing in a certain muddy field west of Brookshire, you can almost believe it’s 1959 and you’ve just parked the family sedan for tonight’s trip to the movies.

Pajama-clad children are nestled in the back seat, and Dad will soon return from a brief hike to the concession stand with plenty of popcorn and soda. Something wholesome is on the marquee, and if the youngsters get tired of that, there’s always putt-putt and the playground.

Can’t imagine it? Don’t worry: Tom Hutcheson already has.

He’s the creative force behind Stars At Night Drive-In Theater, under construction just off I-10, eight minutes west of Katy. His plan is to bring back a 1950s icon and give modern families a nostalgic alternative to the sterile and high-priced multiplex.

“For people who are my age, their children have never been to a drive-in and now they have grandchildren,” he says. (more…)

Rooms To Go has purchased 118 acres of land along I-10 near the southwest corner of Igloo Road for construction of a 1.2 million sq. ft. distribution center and a 90,000 sq. ft. retail outlet.

The new facility will employ at least 300 employees.

Rooms to Go CEO Jeffrey Seaman said, “We have been seeking a site to build a distribution center over the past year to support our new stores opening in Houston, as well as our stores in San Antonio, Austin and surrounding states.”

Dec. 3, 2007, 11:23AM

Fourteen schools in the Katy Independent School District were among an elite group of public schools across the state to be named to Texas Monthly’s “Best Public Schools” list.

A total of 859 elementary, junior high and high schools were published on the list in the magazine’s December 2007 issue.

The magazine in partnership with the National Center for Educational Accountability composed the list of high-performing schools on the basis of Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills test results for the past three years. The top 5 percent of schools are automatically included, and the additional schools are added because they performed better than statistically predicted.

Elementary schools (more…)