Daily media coverage about foreclosure woes outside Texas has helped paint a grim picture of the overall national real estate marketplace. That has left some prospective home buyers and sellers in the Houston area waiting, watching and worrying. However, while markets in California, Florida and Nevada have been the true epicenters of those woes, suffering dramatically as a result of the subprime mortgage meltdown, Houston has remained relatively unscathed and, in fact, continues to thrive.

The latest Houston Association of Realtors figures show that Houston is on pace for the second-best year on record, off only about 3 percent from 2006 in single-family home sales and ahead of the market's outstanding performance in 2005.

Unlike many other parts of the country, Houston remains an excellent market in which to invest, with home values up about 4 percent, following the 6 percent increase of 2006. In fact, the year-to-date total dollar volume of single-family home sales is still higher than last year's level. The year-to-date average sales price of a single-family home in Houston is nearly $206,000 and the median sales price is $152,000; both are all-time records for the greater Houston area.

The Bush administration's recently announced plan for a five-year freeze on interest payments for certain subprime mortgages is likely to ease nerves among jittery borrowers and lenders as 2008 gets under way. Critics of the measure express concern about the true long-term benefits of government intervention as an alternative to allowing the marketplace to correct itself.

However, proponents and critics alike agree that conditions will improve when Congress completes its modernization of Federal Housing Administration programs that will once again make the FHA a viable mortgage product and help protect many current and future homeowners by offering a secure alternative to subprime loans. The National Association of Realtors has also been pushing Congress to reform Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and increase their conforming loan limits, which will not only help home buyers but also help improve liquidity in the lending industry.

Houston-area Realtors taking comfort in the robust local housing climate for now would be well advised to prepare for the possibility of some market weakness in the early part of the new year. While fluctuations in Houston home prices are unlikely, repercussions of the subprime debacle threaten to hurt sales of starter homes whose buyers and sellers may be inclined to take a wait-and-see approach to any future transactions.

As we transition from 2007 to '08, the local housing market continues to be buoyed by a strong job market in which there are plenty of people with documentable income and good credit who can proceed with their pursuit of the American dream of homeownership from a wide selection of attractive housing inventory.

Rob Cook is 2007 chairman of the Houston Association of Realtors and broker/owner of Robert D. Cook Properties.