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Statistics from Neustar:

• 72.2% of wireless users have paid for SMS packages. This equates to 203 million Americans.
• 57% of wireless users 13+ are considered regular text message users.
• There has been a 107% increase in text message use in the USA in the past year.
• 2.5 billion text messages are sent each day in the USA.
• More text messages are sent per phone than phone calls. The average text messages used per month is 357 compared to 204 cell phone calls.
• 138 million Americans have sent a text message in the past three months.

Interest rates have remained low as well. Freddie Mac said that the 30-year fixed mortgage rate fell to 5.12% last week, and the 15-year rate is now down to just 4.56%. With lower prices and very low mortgage rates, housing affordability hasn’t looked so good in many years.

This combination of improved sales and low interest rates should continue to eliminate the inventory supply. This will happen with more sales of homes and Realtors and loan officer’s alike need to be positioned to capture as much of that business as possible moving forward.

http://www.hud.gov/news/speeches/2009-05-12.cfm

And we are taking action to further help the housing market recover. I’m excited to announce here at NAR that FHA’s policy on the “monetization” of the first-time homebuyer tax credit will soon be published. I know that you’ve been waiting anxiously to hear FHA’s position on the matter. We, like you, believe that this new tax credit is not only a tremendous opportunity for first-time homebuyers, but also an enormous benefit for communities struggling to deal with an oversupply of housing. According to estimates by the National Association of Home Builders, this new tax credit will stimulate 160,000 home sales across the nation – 101,000 of which will be first time buyers who will receive the credit. Another 59,000 existing homeowners will be able to buy another home because a first time buyer purchased their home.

“In the last few months you’ve seen a real pickup in activity although at much lower prices,” Buffett said, citing data from Berkshire’s real estate brokerage business, which is one of the largest in the U.S.

Buffett spoke at the Berkshire Hathaway

annual shareholders meeting, which was expected to draw an estimated 35,000 shareholders. In California, medium and lower priced homes — under $750,000 — have been selling more, although there hasn’t been a bounce back in sale prices, Buffett explained.

“We see something close to stability at these much-reduced prices in the medium to lower part of the market,” Buffett said.

Roughly 1.3 million households are created each year in the U.S., while about two million homes were being built a year during the recent boom, Buffett added.

At that rate, “you will run into trouble,” he said.

Now housing starts are running at roughly 500,000 units a year, which means the excess inventory is being absorbed at a rate of about 700,000 to 800,000 units a year, Buffett said.

“We’re going to eat up inventory. When it gets done you will have stabilization in housing prices,” Buffett predicted. “Then you will have demand for more housing starts.”