Mike Wong Realtor, GRI

At the popular and well marketed Mosaic Towers overlooking Herman Park near the Museum District there is a new option for potential residents. Units in the second tower of the Mosaic condominium project will be leased as apartments instead of sold as condos. When the project was announced in January 2006, the first tower was designated as apartments and the second tower as condos. Now it will be the opposite.

Phillips Development & Realty the developer of the twin-tower project at 5925 Almeda, decided to lease units during the current slower sales market, according to a spokesperson. The second tower, which will be finished by the end of March, has been renamed Montage to differentiate it from the Mosaic, which opened last year. Apartments are expected to lease between $2.25 and $2.50 per square foot.

Both buildings contain 394 units that average 980 square feet in size. The towers sit on top of a long seven-story structure of shared common area, including a parking garage, retail space, and a 7,000-square-foot fitness center. Sales have closed on 110 condos and another 57 are under contract. Prices range from $205,000 to $699,000, with even higher price tags for exclusive penthouses.

An average of 8 to 10 condos are selling each month in the 33-story building. Does that sound like a slow market? That is 2.5 units sold per week in a slow market averaging $450,000 per week in sales. Interested in leasing or purchasing a space in the towers? Contact Mike Wong for an exclusive tour.

General Growth Properties which owns 5 shopping malls in the Houston area: Baybrook Mall, Deerbrook Mall, First Colony Mall, The Woodlands Mall and Willowbrook Mall reported in a regulatory filing Tuesday that it faces potential bankruptcy if it's unable to refinance its debt. In addition to its Houston malls and other holdings, General Growth has dozens of other malls and high-end properties throughout the U.S.

The publicly traded company also owns a 50% interest in The Woodlands and was a developer of Bridgeland which are both master-planned communities. The company reported it has about $958 million in debt that is due Dec. 1, with another $3 billion due in 2009. GGP warned in its filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission that efforts to refinance or extend that credit might not succeed.

The company pointed to factors such as a weak credit and retail environment, making it hard for the firm to get financing. The company also has had its debt downgraded, reported large quarterly losses and suspended its quarterly shareholder dividend in recent weeks.

I attended an informative mortgage update seminar today provided by Dixie Sanders of Patriot Bank. Here are some great tips and information she provided to us.

Here are the 9 worst credit mistakes that will affect your FICO score in order of severity:

1) Bankruptcy: will appear on your credit report for at least 7 years, and possibly up to 10 years.

2) Judgments: from court cases, settlements, or liens are the second deadliest sins to your credit.

3) Tax Liens: unpaid tax liens will appear on your credit report.

4) Foreclosures: expect it to be difficcult to get another mortgage if you have a foreclosure on record.

5) Automobile Repossessions: car payments are less than mortgage payments. If a car was repossessed, it does not look very good to lenders.

6) Charge Offs: the collectors gave up and wrote off the debt, but your credit rating is still on the hook.

7) Collections: these often continue as collection companies often sell off the colllection rights to another company. Each one will report thier case each time on your credit report, seems to never end.

8) Late Payments: expect to lose 20 points per incident.

9) Inquiries: there are two types hard and soft pulls. Soft pulls do not affect your score.

For the most accurate FICO score visit www.myfico.com which is the most accurate for mortgage scores. Here is a chart that defines the main components that contribute to your FICO score.

According to a report by the Urban Land Institute and PricewaterhouseCoopers Houston is one of the nation's Top 10 real estate markets for the first time in more than 10 years due to its ties to the strong energy industry.

Houston is ranked 6th in the nation for real estate investment prospects - was declared a "hot-growth market," according to the Emerging Trends in Real Estate 2009. Market strengths include the Johnson Space Center, the Texas Medical Center, the Port of Houston and trade with Mexico, the report says.

"The population keeps expanding due to the high-octane job engine and reasonable cost of living (land is cheap and so is housing)," the report says. "Home prices never escalated dramatically, so values hold better in the mortgage crunch.

Remarkably for this construction-crazed market, office vacancies drop close to 10 percent - surveys signal a good buy opportunity, but apartments soften - still too much new construction. According to the report, moderate-income apartments in core urban markets near mass transit offer the best investment opportunities, a consistent trend from the previous year. Distribution/warehouse facilities were the next best investment, according to the experts.

Downtown office space is expected to outperform suburban markets, according to the report, and retail development is generally near the bottom but still has farther to fall. The housing industry faces more foreclosures and no rebound in values for 2009, according to the report.

Savvy investors will be able to cash in on the inevitable recovery, according to experts.

"Money will be made on riding markets back to recovery and releasing properties, not on financing structures," according to the report.

Texas' real estate foreclosure statistics declined for the month of September and for the third quarter. According to a September report from RealtyTrac: a total of 9,193 homes in Texas entered the foreclosure process - a 15.4 percent decline from the volume filings posted in August 2008.

Even more improved news, the September 2008 numbers mark a 37.4 percent decline from the number of filings posted in Texas over the course of September 2007.

Third-quarter results show a total of 27,445 homes in Texas entered the foreclosure process - marking a 5.7 percent decline from the number of postings reported during the second quarter of this year. However on a year-over-year basis, third quarter 2008 filings were up slightly - 2.5 percent - compared to the number of filings reported over the same three months in 2007.

In line with Texas' more modest foreclosure figures, most of the state's major metro areas also fared well continuously showing declines at a time when much of the country is seeing noted spikes in foreclosure filings. A trend that demonstrates the Houston area's market resilence and stability compared to other parts of the country.

Also according to RealtyTrac's September report, the Houston-Sugar Land-Baytown metropolitan area ranks at No. 53 on their Top 100 foreclosure city list. As of third-quarter 2008, a total 9,232 homes - 0.44 percent - of its housing units were in foreclosure.

Nationally, RealtyTrac is reporting for September a total of 265,968 homes entered the foreclosure process - marking a 12 percent decline from the number of filings posted in August. But compared to September 2007, monthly filings were up 21 percent.

The third-quarter numbers show a total of 765,558 homes in the U.S. entered the foreclosure process - marking a 3 percent jump in figures posted during the second quarter of the year. The current number also marks a 71 percent spike in the number of filings compared with the third quarter of 2007.

Right now there are many opportunities for investors and first time buyers. Contact Mike Wong for a personal consultation about your market area and making the best decisions for your investments and real estate portfolio. Contact Mike Wong for his monthly "Best Buys" list or foreclosure lists.