What connects the Muffin Man and the distressed housing market? Well, the simple fact that the former owner of the muffin restaurant in Houston known as the yellow 1940 American foursquare at 2310 Converse Street has been hit by foreclosure.

The property was listed for sale as a foreclosure last week. As Swamplot reports, Jason Perry operated a notable Montrose after-hours spot in the fall of 2010 without obtaining any necessary city of state permits.

However, the property can be recognized from its “Muffin Man” insignia emblazoned on the front of the building’s upper story.

The luxury real estate was removed from the multiple listing service for a few days so the seller can put it on the market without showing that the price was reduced again.

The Huntington high-rise condo located at 2121 Kirby features 12,827-square-feet of living space. The asking price: $6,395,000, which is down 8.5% from the December price tag of $6.99 million. The asking price is now also below the value placed on the property as  of Jan. 1, 2011 by the Harris County Appraisal District: $6,828,881.

According to the Houston Business Journal, the high-rise condo takes up the entire 33rd floor of the Huntington, and offers panoramic views in all directions with its Italian Renaissance-inspired design. The real estate has four bedrooms, four full bathrooms, fiva half bathrooms, five half-baths and a study/library.

The original asking price of this luxury condominium was $12.8 million, and it was marketed for year with this price tag, without any success.

The total number of single family homes sold in 2011 was supplied by the Houston Area of Realtor’s recent statistic, which shows 53,606 single-family home sales recorded through HAR’s multiple listing service for last year.

However, single family homes aren’t the only ones trending upwards in sales: townhomes and condominium sale are also up 4.3% on a year-over-year basis totaling 63,810 compared to 61,005 reported a year prior. Total dollar volume increased 5.2% to $13 million from $12.4 million.

Still, the average price for single-family homes gained only 0.9 percent year over year, to $213,723 from $211,765 in 2010.

Another important information that came through the HAR report is that Houston’s housing market is the first one nationwide, which a healthy supply: the numbers show that there was 5.8 month of inventory available for sale in December, the lowest since 2009, while the nationwide inventory stays at 7.2 months.

Total sales in the area went up 4% compared to a year prior, at 53,606 homes changing owners, bringing the median price paid for a property up 0.7% to $155,000 for 2011.

“We spent a good part of the year struggling to accurately gauge the market, because we were comparing to accelerated sales in 2010 that resulted from the homebuyer tax credit,” said Wayne A. Stroman, HAR chairman. “Once we distanced ourselves from that period, we saw clear indications of a healthy market with a balanced supply of housing inventory and strong pricing.”

The numbers also underscored a significant 7.2% increase in home sales reported in December compared to the same month a year prior. With home sales on the rise, the median also jumped from the 2011 median to $160,000 in December. The positive sales activity was seen in all segments of the housing market, except for those priced above $500,000, which remained unchanged over last December.

Foreclosures jumped 6.1% in the December comparison, as the Multiple Listing Service reported. Distressed properties for 20.5% of all property sales, remaining consistent with the levels for much of 2011 with the median price holding steady at $82,550.

Plaza at Enclave hosts the regional headquarters for Down Chemical Co, located on nearly 8 acres located at 1254 Enclase Pkwy. Trent Agnew, Dan Miller and Rusty Tamlyn with Holliday Fenoglio Fowler Lp represented the seller in the transaction, as GlobeSt informs.

Public records show that Dow signed a lease through 2011 for 283,254 square-feet of the total leasable space and the now owners have to find tenants for only  4% of space, as the property is 96% leased.

The building was constructed in 2008, and Dow opted for Enclave because of its location to the employee base and its amenities package.

Since the building was finished the Energy Corridor was a success for their owners, while the housing market dealt with high absorption rates combined with dwindling vacancies which have led to speculative and build-to-suit construction.

What the report highlights is that the number of Houston-Sugar Land-Baytown area foreclosures dropped by 8.63% since the prior months and by more 20.46/ compared to December 2010.

During the 12 months of 2011 29,917 Houston-area homes were hit by foreclosure which represents about one in every 76 homes. Compared to 2010 this number is a significant drop, as the prior year there were 35,816 filings.

Just as Houston, the whole state saw foreclosures trend down. Throughout the state there was a decrease of more than 34% in foreclosures, the Houston Business Journal notes.

According to RealtyTrac’s comments on the numbers, the drop is due to delay in foreclosure filing.

To be more precise, the study found that Houston ranked 7th on the list, which is led by New York. The second place went to Washington DC, followed by San Francisco.

However, Houston isn’t the only Texas city which made it to the favored cities top 20 list. Austin moved into the eighth spot from eleventh place last year and Dallas went up to the thirteenth, after no having a place on the list since 1995.

The survey data also revealed that 6% of the investors will plan to increase their US investment in 2012, which is a quite lower than the 72% reported last year. Another 59% of the asked investors said the country offers the most stable and secure real estate investment worldwide. This level of confidence also went up, as the financial crisis that hit the globe in 2008 crushed the Texas housing market too.

Among the most popular investments multifamily complexes retain the most favored rank, the survey found. Apartments are followed by industrial, office and retail properties in popularity.

The six-story office building features a three-level attached parking garage on 4.4 acres in suburban Houston. The transaction was signed before Christmas, on December 21.

According to Dallas Real estate, the $16.8 million sales price did not include transaction costs.

This is yet another example of the housing market recovery. The recently sold office building stretches on 156,000 square-feet, and it is located in the Westchase submarket of West Houston. It was built in 1982, and placed in a mixed-use development that houses various dining and retail establishments and hotel accommodations.

The latest statistics released on Tuesday by HAR shows that the area had a healthy 6.2 months supply of homes for sale in November, which means it would take this amount of time (6.2 months) to sell all properties that make the housing inventory right now based on local sales activity over the past year.

The number of homes for sale is less 17.7% compared to a year ago, when the inventory stood at 7.6 months.

This is good news for the Houston homeowners, as the market is considered healthy, when it has six months supply on hand.

The same report highlights that Houston home sales were up 11.4% compared to a year ago, when only 3,568 homes sold. This year 3,973 single-family homes were acquired in November.

The median sales price of these homes reached its highest level for a November in the area: $154,950. This year’s number is nearly 3% higher than the median price posted a year prior.

Single-family home rentals rose 13.5 percent in November, and townhouse/condominium rentals increased 4.1 percent.

The sellers who sold the 29-story building are Trammell Crow Co and Principal Real Estate Investors to H&R Real Estate Investment Trust, a Toronto-based company.

The 845,000 square-feet office building is fully leased to Hess Corp till June 2026.

The real estate located at 1501 McKinney St. has opened its doors in June and garnered $72.5 million more than the second highest priced office building in Houston. Now the Hess Tower holds the record for the highest sales price for an office building and the $524 per-square-foot price has also set a record for the highest-square-foot price for an office building located in Houston.

Westway II, a 242,000-square-foot office building in west Houston, held the most recent price-per-square-foot record, when it sold in September for $307.50 per square foot, or $74.4 million, the Houston Business Journal wrote.