In New York City, mortgage closing costs topped the $4,000 mark, with Houston close behind at $3,975. North Carolina was at the bottom of the list, where the average closing costs are $2,650.

Buyers often overlook the closing fees as part of the expensive in buying a home, and they can often be quite high. It’s worth the homeowner’s time to really read documents closely and question the fees he or she is writing checks out for. Some fees, such as origination and title search, can be negotiated. Also, as the housing market remains soft, certain fees have risen and certain other fees have been added on as lenders seek to cover their losses. Appraisal fees, in particular, have risen sharply as lenders request a more thorough, time consuming job – including prices tends in with the usual market comparison.

The list of fees is extensive and it behooves the homeowner to look closely at where their money is going.

The United States Green Building Council (USGBC) will be changing the process for green building certification in January 2009. Certification through the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) program has become extremely popular since its inception in the year 2000, with over 1,500 building having received certification and 11,000 more applying for it.

LEED awards points toward three levels of rankings – silver, gold, or platinum – by examining five key areas in a building’s design: sustainable development on the site, savings in water use, energy efficient lighting and temperature control systems, use of recycled or environmentally friendly materials, and quality of indoor air.

There have been growing complaints, however, that the application process is awkward and illogical, with small items like a bicycle rack and large expensive features such as an HVAC system receiving the same number of points toward certification. This is what the USGBC seeks to change.

The USGBC asked for public comment earlier this summer in a 30 day online forum that ended on June 22^nd. The resulting new version, called LEED 2009, will revamp the rating system, streamlining it into one system and allocating points differently. The new system will be more flexible, more able to adapt to a continuously evolving industry as newer and better techniques and materials are developed, as well as accounting for different regions of the country.

The USGBC feels this new process will not only encourage builders and developers to incorporate environmentally friendly practices and materials into their construction, but will encourage innovation and make it easier for builders to seek LEED certification.

In fact, Texans as a whole are fairly accident prone when they get behind the wheel. In the twenty cities the report examines, Houston drivers were 23 percent more likely to have an accident while in Dallas the probability is 27 percent and, in San Antonio, it’s 25 percent. Austinites also have more frequent accidents, with an average of less than seven and a half years between accidents. In Houston, it’s slightly over eight years, and about the same in Dallas – 7.8 years – and San Antonio – 8 years between accidents.

Sioux Falls, Iowa, checks in as the safest city for drivers in the national. Drivers there are 31 percent less likely to have a vehicular accident when compared with the rest of the US.

This report suggests that Texans aren’t as laid back as their stereotypical reputation might suggest. Maybe it’s the influx of new residents or the new popular trend to talk or text message while driving. It’s been proven in studies that using ones cell phone or other device while behind the wheel impairs ones driving ability to nearly the same degree as someone who is driving while intoxicated. So listen up, Austinites! Slow down, take it easy, and get off that cell phone!

The real estate market for professional office space continues to look grim as office vacancy in Austin rose to 16.5 percent during the second quarter of 2008. This is up slightly from the 16 percent vacancy rate reported for the first quarter.

Oxford Commercial, a tenant representative brokerage firm based in Austin, compiled the report and released it on July 1^st. The report reveals 37,000 square feet of office space vacant during the period between April and June 2008, fueled in part by the departure of Advanced Micro Devices, Inc., who left for their own brand new 870,000 square foot campus.

Developers have added approximately 300,000 square feet of new office space during the quarter which, combined with lack of interest, has helped to drive up the supply. And landlords are looking at lowering rents as a very last resort to address the vacancies.

Developers are in another quandary. The rising cost of construction and the need to fill space clash with each other as landlords consider more concessions such as higher tenant improvement allowances and even free rent. It’s somewhat easier to lower rents in existing space than the newer construction in light of the higher construction costs.

Purchasing your office still looks better than renting it.

Despite the gloomy picture painted by the report, downtown Austin is seeing a resurgence in interest among professionals, particularly in the central business district. Vacancy dropped from 16.1 percent to 15.5 percent during the first quarter of 2008, a sign that perhaps things are beginning to look up. Once again, Austin defies the national average.

Well, maybe not right away.  Results from a recent survey released by Salary.com suggest that Austin is a great city to build your personal wealth. Ranked number thirteen on a list of 69 major US cities, Austin is near the top for its decent salary level, relatively low cost of living, proximity to institutes of higher education, as well as unemployment rate and percentage of residents living below the poverty level.

Not surprisingly, New York, NY, Washington DC, Los Angeles and San Francisco, CA, and Honolulu, HI, were ranked at the bottom of the list, mainly because of the high cost of living relative to average salaries in those cities.

Plano, Texas, topped the list. Other Texas cities that made the top 35 were San Antonio, Houston, and Arlington, coming in at 24, 28, and 34 respectively.

The survey, called the Salary Value Index (SVI), takes salary data from US cities with populations of 250,000 and more and compares it to the cost of living in each area. Other factors considered were diversity of industry, education levels in the general population, and median commute times. These were factors added to the survey just this year.

According to Bill Coleman, chief compensation officer at Salary.com, “each additional qualifying factor helped to further refine the list by highlighting the ‘employment strength’ of cities with a variety of industry, strong focus on education, and low unemployment. The 2008 Salary Value Index represents cities with tremendous workforce and employer diversity and a sense of livability” Which describes the city of Austin to a “t”!

Currently, the district operates at the highest property tax rate it can, 1.04 percent, without turning to the board for a vote. And with property values rising, it is expected that taxes will bring in added revenue in the upcoming year. However, much of that revenue will be given to the state to be distributed among property-poor districts. In fact, Austin must send $61 million to the state, so any additional money resulting from higher property values won’t last long.

The district, therefore, is requesting a budget in which taxes are raised to $1.0765 per $100 of assessed property values, for a total of $1.1995 including debt. This will couple with an overall budget increase of 8.8 percent to $862.5 million for the 2008-09 year. Employees would also get a three percent raise, and full health coverage would remain intact.

Whether this increase will occur is yet to be seen, as there are several other proposed budgets, each with its own take on property taxes. Education Austin, for example, is looking for a budget increase with a 5 percent raise for employees, in addition to family health coverage (the district’s plan covered employees only) and a wage increase for hourly employees. The budget would call for a property tax rate of $1.243 including debt.

If there were no tax increase, there would be no raise for employees and employees would have to contribute $348 a year for health insurance.

The school board was scheduled to vote on August 6 at an evening meeting. The results of that vote are as of this posting unknown.

Besides, this construction, when it started, was expected to lead to luxury condos and an office building, to be called La Vista on Lavaca. The permit was taken out for it in April 2007. At that time, Jason Redfern, manager of the Right of Way Management Division in Austin’s Watershed Protection and Development Review Department, said, the developers planned to keep the street closed for six months. When six months came and went, they renewed the permit for another six.

April 2008 should have seen another renewal or the completion of the project. It saw neither, and in fact, didn’t even see construction. No one has been there for months and the permits are expired. The city is now probing into the whys and whats of the situation, hoping for a clear answer in this mysterious halt.

The developers claim that their permits are up to date, and that the city is mistaken. But their claims do nothing for the fact that the street is still closed for no apparent reason.

If nothing is going to be done, citizens want it open; so does the city. There should not be, they say, inconvenience for no reason. There should only be inconvenience with the promise of future convenience. And that has disappeared from West 17^th and Lavaca.

Consumers remain cautious about spending their hard earned money in this shaky economic climate, but retail sales show a small gain in spite of it. This shows positive growth for the area.

The Texas Comptroller’s office reports sales tax receipts in the Austin area were $11.5 million in July 2008, a small increase – about .7 percent – over last year. For comparison, Houston’s sales tax revenue was up 7.3 percent, San Antonio’s was up 4.7, and Dallas was up 2.9 over last year at this time. For the first seven months of 2008, Austin pulled in $85 million in sales tax revenue, showing an increase of just over one percent, 1.4 percent to be precise, over the first seven months of 2007.

Statewide, the comptroller collected nearly $2 billion in sales tax receipts in June of 2008, an increase of 8.4 percent over 2007. The comptroller allocated nearly $312 million statewide in July sales tax allocations, an increase of 2.6 percent over 2007.

The top Texas sales tax rate increases by city show Arlington in first place with an increase of 13.54 percent, Beaumont next with 9.41 percent, followed by Tyler with an increase of 9.18 percent. Then comes Midland at 8.62 percent, Fort Worth with an increase of 8.36 percent, followed by Houston at 7.33 percent. Austin brings up the rear with a modest increase of .68 percent over 2007 rates.

In an article in the Statesman, Comptroller Susan Combs sums it up thusly: “Through June 2008, fiscal year-to-date state sales tax collections have increase 6.1 percent compared to fiscal 2007. While we have seen the national economy slowing, growth in Texas sales tax revenue continues at a steady pace.”

The rise of the peso against the United States dollar has some Mexican developers looking north to invest in Texan property. The Mexican economy is growing steadily, and faster than the US economy, at about 2.6 percent a year and the peso has gained 3.2 percent on the US dollar since January of 2008. In comparison, the US economy is expected to see a 1.4 percent growth in 2008.

Mexicans are seizing an opportunity to purchase foreclosed properties in the southern Texas areas close to the US-Mexican border such as Mission. Mexicans with money to invest are seeing the housing and real estate slump as a perfect time to diversify their holdings. Investors are finding bargain prices in the current sluggish climate. All that’s needed are the funds and a valid entry visa into the US.

Even though Texas hasn’t taken as bad a hit as other regions, home sales in the first quarter of 2008 have dropped 12 percent and foreclosures rose 20 percent from the same quarter a year ago. Investors from Monterrey, Mexico, are eying the southern Texas area as an excellent investment opportunity, and most are purchasing property with plans to develop it in two or three years when the real estate market is expected to begin to turn around for the better. Some, on a more personal level, are looking for retirement homes or for housing for their children studying at Texas colleges and universities.

Regardless of the reason, southern Texas needs an infusion of cash to boost its flagging economy and investors from Monterrey are glad to help out. Thus a new Tex-Mex connection is being forged.

According to the apartment research firm, M/PF YieldStar, occupancy for June 2008 stood at 93.4 percent, down 1.5 percent from March and nearly 2 percent from the same time in 2007. This should raise some concerns with landlords, as the same firm predicts a flattening of occupancy for the rest of 2008, and foresees a drop of possibly 3 percent in 2009.

Construction of nearly 13,000 units is planned for the Austin area through 2009. Greg Willett, vice president of research for M/PF, says the real need is for about half that amount, based on demand which he feels has become sluggish.

This pessimistic opinion is not shared by developers in the Austin market, however. Spencer Stuart, managing director of Legacy Partners Residential Development Inc., says rental activity is strong in both downtown and close by suburban areas. Rising gas prices and the desire to be close to the action is fueling the demand for higher priced units closer in to the city.

Still, the rise in rental rates does appear to be slowing down and tenants will indeed find bargain lease rates. Rents rose less than 4 percent from 2007 to 2008, with average monthly rent standing at $839. Yet, this means the market becomes more competitive, and that means good deals for prospective tenants.