Texas Leading U.S. Out of Housing Mess

Texas has one of the healthiest real estate markets in the nation; the Lone Star State is currently leading the country in housing starts and population growth. And two Texas metro areas -- Dallas/Fort Worth and Houston -- provided a combined 5 percent of the nation's gross domestic product from 2001 to 2008.

Folks are camping out on the sidewalks to place offers on homes like they did in 2006. And while there hasn't been word of a bidding war in eons, sales are brisk, particularly in the entry-level categories.

Foreclosures are still an issue, but because Texas real estate never spiked and bubbled like certain West Coast and East Coast markets, it never plunged after the fall. And Texas will be the first state to recover from the housing market downturn, leading other states out of the real estate doldrums, says Mike Inselmann, founder of Metrostudy Inc. His Texas-based company tracks home building nationally, and Inselmann made those forecasts to the National Association of Real Estate editors as they met last week in one of the state's hot real estate markets, Austin.