COPPERAS COVE (Killeen Daily Herald) – The Copperas Cove Economic Development Corp. (CCEDC) has approved a partnership with Endeavor Real Estate Group of Austin to build the Shops at Five Hills.

This consent comes while the CCEDC awaits the closing of a land swap between the cities of Copperas Cove and Fort Hood for the retail development.

The 1.15 million-sf Shops at Five Hills will be built across from Cinergy Cinemas on Constitution Dr. and have more than 6,000 parking spaces when completed.

WASHINGTON, D.C. (Associated Press) – Homeowners have received another year to refinance their loans under the Home Affordable Refinance Program, the Federal Housing Finance Agency announced yesterday.

The program, which was originally scheduled to end June 10 but now expires June 30, 2011, allows borrowers who owe up to 25 percent more than their homes are worth to refinance at lower interest rates.

The Treasury Department reports that, so far, the program has helped about 220,000 homeowners with loans owned or guaranteed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, far less than the projected four to five million.

AUSTIN (Austin Business Journal) – Texas expects to receive $2.25 billion for about 450 highway projects statewide from American Recovery and Reinvestment Act road construction funding.

About 320 of the projects are currently under construction.

These dollars are leveraged with state funds, including about $12 million awarded last month to Central Texas projects, according to the Texas Department of Transportation.

Nationwide, the bill signed last year is expected to pump $26.1 billion into the nation’s road infrastructure.

Vice President Joe Biden and U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood announced the funding yesterday.

Texas came out on top of Gadberry's survey, with four high-growth cities: Atascocita, Katy, Mansfield, and Wylie. The report only included areas larger than 10,000 occupied households that met requirements for growth rate, household income, length of residence, and other factors.

Larry Martin, principal of the Gadberry Group, says many of the places with the biggest housing growth at the beginning of the last decade, such as Nevada, Florida, and Arizona, also saw the biggest drop-off since the economy sank. Texas, however, enjoyed relatively strong housing and job markets over the last 10 years, thanks in large part to the presence of major employers in the robust energy business. As of December, the state unemployment rate was 8.3% (lower than the national rate of 10%), according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. It also had the largest state population growth between July 2008 and July 2009, according to a December release by the Census Bureau. "New homes are still being built and people are still moving into these homes" in Texas, says Martin.

Part of the state's strength, says Mark Mather, a demographer at the Population Reference Bureau in Washington, D.C., is its diversified economy. Main industries include petroleum refining, chemical production, aerospace, and information technology.

AUSTIN (Austin Business Journal) – RealtyTrac’s annual foreclosure report, released yesterday, revealed Texas metro rates to be under the national average of 2.21 percent.

Austin and Round Rock area foreclosure rates increased 39.5 percent between 2008 and 2009. About 1.25 percent of all housing units, or one in every 80 homes, foreclosed last year, and 8,002 homeowners filed. This was an increase of 54.6 percent from 2007. Of the 203 metros ranked nationwide for foreclosures, the area was ranked 117th.

Dallas–Fort Worth ranked 94th with a 1.5 percent foreclosure rate, and Houston was 111th with 1.3 percent of its area homes foreclosed upon. San Antonio ranked 109th in RealtyTrac’s report, with a 1.31 percent foreclosure rate.

If you go to this web site, www.LetsSayThanks.com you can pick out a thank you card and Xerox will print it and it will be sent to a soldier that is currently serving in Iraq . You can't pick out who gets it, but it will go to a member of the armed services.

How AMAZING it would be if we could get everyone we know to send one!!! It is FREE and it only takes a second.

Wouldn't it be wonderful if the soldiers received a bunch of these? Whether you are for or against the war, our soldiers over there need to know we are behind them.

This takes just 10 seconds and it's a wonderful way to say thank you. Please take the time to pass it on for others to do. We can never say enough thank you's.

Thanks for taking to time to support our military!

Here is some more great news about how well the Texas real estate market has held up despite the massive problems elsewhere in the country.  As you’ll see, the Killeen-Temple-Ft. Hood market put in an especially strong showing! – Jean Shine

LOS ANGELES (Milken Institute) – Texas metros, led by number one Austin–Round Rock, claimed four of the top five spots and nine of the top 16 in the 2009 Milken Institute/Greenstreet Real Estate Partners Best-Performing Cities Index.

Also making the list were Killeen–Temple–Fort Hood (2), McAllen-Edinburg-Mission (4), Houston–Sugar Land–Baytown (5), San Antonio (11), Fort Worth–Arlington (12), Dallas-Plano-Irving (13), El Paso (14) and Corpus Christi (16).

Austin–Round Rock was the first metro to ever be ranked number one twice on the index, the last time being in 2000.

But it doesn't stop there. Nine other Texas metros made the top 25 out of the 124 smallest metros that were studied.

Those were Midland (1), Longview (2), Tyler (4), Odessa (5), College Station–Bryan (14), Texarkana (17), Waco (18), Laredo (20) and Abilene (21).

Leaders in this year’s index, which ranks U.S. metros based on their ability to create and sustain jobs, are all metros that succeeded in avoiding the worst of economic declines driven by falling housing markets and job losses in manufacturing and global trade.

Regional economic factors also strongly influenced the rankings this year, with the oil and gas sector, technology and alternative energy providing stability among metros in Texas, North Carolina, Washington and Louisiana.

Another factor helping Texas metros move up in the rankings is the state’s favorable business climate and its ability to attract jobs and corporations away from higher-cost states.