Texas Home Builders Workers’ Comp Group Announces Dividend

Hotchkiss Insurance Agency, LLC announced a $59,360.36 dividend to the Texas Home Builders Workers’ Comp (THB-WC) purchasing group today. The group, formed in September, 2005, exclusive to home builders in Texas, provides qualifying members with a competitive option for workers’ compensation coverage. The announcement marks the first dividend payment for the group by Texas Mutual, the program underwriter. “Commitment to good business practices allows the Texas home builder to transfer risk effectively to the subcontractor and buy the workers’ compensation policy for their own employees and not the employees of others,” said Anne Davis of Hotchkiss Insurance Agency, the THB-WC Group administrator. “We’re committed to the ongoing education of every Texas home builder – so that they take full advantage of the Workers’ Compensation laws that were written exclusively for their industry. The THB program allows the home builder to gain education, risk control and participate in the state’s best policyholder dividend programs.” More

Houston Home Sales Down 20 Percent

The local housing market continued to feel the effects of the troubled national economy in October. Single-family home sales fell 20.1 percent compared with October 2007 to 4,202, according to statistics released by the Houston Association of Realtors. It was the 14th consecutive decline in monthly sales. At $194,607, down 1.6 percent from $197,751 in October 2007, the average price of a single-family home was the second-highest recorded for an October in Houston. More

DFW Home Prices Dip 2.3 Percent

Dallas-Fort Worth home prices dipped by 2.3 percent in the latest measure of the nationwide housing market. Median U.S. existing home sales prices dropped by 9 percent in the just-released third-quarter survey by the National Association of Realtors. Home prices declined in 120 of the 152 markets included in the benchmark home price report. Realtors say that a growing volume of foreclosed home sales is affecting values in many markets. More

Housing Starts Lowest Since 1959, but Rise in West

Two key measurements of the housing market show that the sector is a long way from ending its historic slump, but the news was best in the West. A new report from the U.S. Commerce Department shows housing starts reached an annual rate of 791,000 last month, the lowest level since the department began tracking starts in 1959. The October rate plunged 4.5 percent from the revised reading of 828,000 in September. More

Gov. Perry to Make Plea in Houston for More FEMA Ike Help

Frustrated that the Federal Emergency Management Agency hasn’t answered his month-old plea for full funding of Hurricane Ike recovery costs, Gov. Rick Perry is headed to Houston on Thursday to announce a new commission to head up the coastal rebuilding effort. Mr. Perry will reiterate that Texas needs the federal agency to cover all of the hurricane debris removal costs for the next 18 months, or risk bankrupting the state’s hard-hit coastal communities. More

Strayhorn Files Paperwork for 2009 Austin Mayoral Run

Former gubernatorial candidate Carole Keeton Strayhorn has filed paperwork appointing a campaign treasurer in a bid to run again for mayor of Austin. The filing Wednesday with the city clerk's office allows Strayhorn, elected Austin's first woman mayor, to begin raising and spending money on a mayoral campaign, but it does not officially place her name on the ballot. More

Amarillo Bucks National Housing Trend

A record 4 out of 5 U.S. cities - 120 of the 152 metropolitan areas surveyed by the National Association of Realtors - saw existing single-family home median sales prices drop in the third-quarter compared with a year ago. But Amarillo counts itself among the 1 in 5 U.S. metropolitan areas where home prices did not fall in the third quarter. More