Tulsa and Oklahoma City, Okla., were at the top of the list of U.S. News and World Report’s best housing markets for 2011. They fared well because of a strong local economy, good employment prospects and the lack of a big housing run-up in the boom years. “Oklahoma City is a poster child, a touchstone that we keep going back to throughout the housing recession for markets that have bucked the trend,” says Stan Humphries, chief economist at real estate website Zillow. “Because it did not participate in the housing run-up is why it’s held its value so well in the recession, because it didn’t get overpriced.” In third place was Honolulu, which remains a hot market because it is an attractive place to live. “Tulsa, Oklahoma City and Madison, Wis., are seeing organic demand in the market, so it’s really dependent on their own economic vitality,” Humphries says. “Honolulu and L.A., New York and D.C. are seeing a lot of both domestic interest and hefty international buying interest.” (www.usnews.com)
U.S. News and World Report (12/19/11); Meg Handley

The housing market is ticking up as new households are created. Young adults who have been living with their parents are moving into their own homes amid somewhat stronger job growth. Household formations totaled 1.2 million in the 12 months ended in March, up from 357,000 the previous 12 months. At the same time, the inventory of new homes has reached a record low, says economist Patrick Newport of HIS Global Insight. “At some point you need to ramp up housing starts in a big way,” he says. He expects 675,000 single-family and multifamily starts next year, up from 600,000 this year — still less than half the 1.5 million in a normal year — and 960,000 in 2013. After adding virtually nothing to — or subtracting from — economic growth in recent years, “You’re talking about housing finally being a meaningful contributor to the overall economy” in 2012, says Diane Swonk, chief economist of Mesirow Financial. Kosse Maykus, a Fort Worth, Texas-area contractor, built 14 homes this year, about double last year’s pace. Until recently customers had been putting off construction of their dream homes in the hopes of getting a better price for their existing houses, Maykus says. “Folks I see today are more realistic,” he says. (www.usatoday.com)
USA Today (12/15/11); Paul Davidson

Housing experts at an annual housing forecast hosted by the Home Builders Association of Metropolitan Portland in Oregon agreed that after suffering a ruinous few years, the national and regional housing markets were stabilizing and should begin growing again in 2012 and 2013. “Things are getting better, slowly but surely. The worst is behind us,” Robert Denk, NAHB’s assistant vice president for forecasting and analysis, told hundreds of builders who specialize in single-family homes. Todd Birch, president of the Portland-based New Home Trends forecasting business, agreed, saying that demand for new homes already is increasing. “Recent job growth and in-migration are starting to put pressure on the existing housing stock,” said Birch, noting that some residents already are paying more to rent their home than they would pay to buy it. In fact, work already is underway on the first large-scale residential subdivision in the Portland area in four years. It envisions 200 homes in the Pleasant Valley area of Gresham. The first phase has 23 lots and is scheduled to be completed in January. Forty to 50 lots are targeted for the second phase. The upscale apartment market also is stirring since the wave of condominium conversions over the past few years. Developer Bob Ball recently announced plans to build a new market-rate apartment building with 177 units in the Pearl District. Ball, who previously specialized in converting historic buildings to condos, feels the economy can support such a project. The building will cost $35 million and be privately financed. (www.portlandtribune.com)
Portland Tribune (12/8/11); Jim Redden

Hovnanian Enterprises Inc. isn’t counting on any improvement in the housing market for at least another two years, but the home builder is pressing ahead with plans to open more communities next year. The company is counting on sales at newer, more profitable communities to help it weather weak housing demand. In the August to October quarter, its new home contracts rose 3%, while home deliveries — a key driver of revenue — declined about 3%. Hovnanian says it can boost its “top line,” or revenue, by selling more homes from newer communities built on less expensive land, rather than parcels acquired before the housing downturn. “Our internal projections for the next two years assume no improvement in market conditions,” said Ara K. Hovnanian, the builder’s chairman, president and CEO. “So any top line growth is driven by community count growth.” Hovnanian ended fiscal 2011 with 5% more open communities than in 2010. And the percentage of homes Hovnanian sold from its newer communities more than tripled in fiscal 2011 versus a year earlier. The company expects that will increase next year. (www.washingtonpost.com)
Washington Post (12/15/11); Associated Press

In 2007, Lawrence Lewis, who was raised in the projects of Washington, D.C., and rose to become chief engineer at a military retirement home, worked with his staff to divert a backed-up sewage system into an outside storm drain — one they long believed was connected to the city’s sewage-treatment system — to prevent flooding in an area where the sickest residents lived. In fact, the storm drain emptied into a creek that ultimately reaches the Potomac River. Eight months later, Lewis pleaded guilty in federal court to violating the Clean Water Act. He was given one year’s probation and placed under court-ordered supervision. “I got a criminal record from my job — when I thought I was doing the right thing?” says Lewis, 60 years old. Lewis was caught in Washington’s four-decade expansion of federal criminal law. Today, there are an estimated 4,500 federal crimes on the books, a significant increase from the three in the Constitution for treason, piracy and counterfeiting. There is an additional, and much larger, number of regulations written to enforce the laws — one of which ensnared Lewis. Many of these federal infractions are now easier to prosecute than in the past because of a weakening in a bedrock doctrine of Anglo-American jurisprudence: the principle of mens rea, or “guilty mind,” which holds that a person shouldn’t be convicted if he hasn’t shown an intent to do something wrong. Nobody, including Lewis, argues that dumping waste into a creek is a good idea. However, critics of the federal criminal justice system argue the government is criminalizing mistakes that might more appropriately be handled with civil fines or injunctions. In Lewis’ case, a Justice Department court filing acknowledged he didn’t realize the waste was going into the creek. (www.wsj.com)
Wall Street Journal (12/12/11); Gary Fields and John R. Emshwiller

In 2004, the Auburn Housing Authority became the first authority in Maine and one of the first in the country to ban smoking in public housing, and it has served as a model. On Jan.1, Maine will become the first state in the country in which all of its public housing authorities are smoke-free, affecting about 12,000 tenants. Similar policies are being adopted with increasing frequency across the country as cities move aggressively to restrict smoking in more public places, from bars and restaurants to parks, beaches and vehicles. Come September, Boston will become the biggest city to ban smoking in its public housing, which serves about 25,000 tenants. Detroit, San Antonio and Portland, Ore., already have similar restrictions in place. In 2005, only 32 housing authorities had smoking bans in effect, according to Jim Bergman, director of the Smoke-Free Environments Law Project in Michigan; by the end of this year, he said, 285, or about 9% of the total, will have enacted bans, affecting hundreds of thousands of tenants. Officials at the Department of Housing and Urban Development say the federal agency is planning to gather information next year on how various cities have carried out their bans and will publish a report of best practices, in the hope of encouraging more housing authorities to enact their own. (www.nytimes.com)
New York Times (12/17/11); Katharine Q. Seelye