Tag >> The Economy
The Miami-Ft. Lauderdale, Fla., metro area--which includes Broward, Miami-Dade and Palm Beach counties--has gained a reputation as a mecca for retirees. The south Florida sun shines on scores of condos that jut like vertical cruise ships from the emerald-tinged shoreline. Near the most luxurious of these residences, golf courses dot the landscape, poolside sunbathers enjoy the company of other seniors and gourmet meals are available via room service. Yet Miami isn't quite the paradise it's thought to be. Thanks in part to a battered real estate market and high housing costs, it ranks 29th on our list of America's recession-proof places to retire, well behind top-ranked Atlanta. Our list, compiled by crunching seven sets of statistics from sunny days to median home price, reveals that Atlanta has many trends working in its favor--low cost of living, plenty of sun and housing that is affordable and projected to rise in value over the next five years. "Atlanta is the financial and industrial center of the South," says Eduardo Martinez, senior economist at Moody's Economy.com. "With companies like Delta and Home Depot, it's home to more and more international business." Four cities in the Lone Star State make the list. The Dallas-Ft. Worth metro area; Houston, just two spots behind it; Austin at No. 6; and San Antonio in the No. 10 spot. All three cities are benefiting from some positive Texan trends. "In Texas, it was a relatively mild recession," says Martinez. "All our projections are for quite a bit of growth. In terms of job creation, more people are moving out there, and families are getting bigger. The fundamentals for Texas are a lot stronger than those of other peer large states." Behind the Numbers To form our list, we looked at the country's 40 largest metropolitan statistical areas and applied seven metrics. Americans are living longer--the average life span has been increasing for a decade, rising from an average 76.5 years in 1997 to 77.9 in 2007, according a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report released in August. As a result, retirees should be looking for reasonably priced homes that will appreciate in value. With this in mind, we looked at current median home price and five-year projected home price via data from Moody's Economy.com. We also included two important cost measures: median monthly housing expense from the Census Bureau and a cost of living index--for expenses unrelated to housing--from the Council for Community and Economic Research. Read the rest of the story and see the entire list on Forbes.com
Posted by: gardnergroup in The Economy on
May 17, 2010
Employment, household incomes and housing prices were all down in 90% of metro areas in 2009. The worst may be over, but businesses on both coasts still face outrageous business costs and state governments starved for tax revenue. What to do? Head to Middle America, says our 12th annual ranking of the Best Places for Business and Careers. Des Moines, Iowa is in the lead spot, and multiple locales in Nebraska and Colorado rank among the best. The highlights of our ranking are below. For more, including an interactive city screener and a look at smaller metro areas, visit www.forbes.com/bestplaces. Overall Rankings Top Ten
1 Des Moines, IA
2 Provo, UT
3 Raleigh, NC
4 Fort Collins, CO
5 Lincoln, NE
6 Denver, CO
7 Omaha, NE
8 Huntsville, AL
9 Lexington, KY
10 Austin, TX Bottom Ten
191 Canton, OH
192 Youngstown, OH
193 Stockton, CA
194 Detroit, MI
195 Utica, NY
196 Salinas, CA
197 Flint, MI
198 Modesto, CA
199 Vallejo, CA
200 Merced, CA
1 out of 8 Foreclosures per housing unit in Las Vegas in 2009.
1 out of 1,972 Foreclosures per housing unit in Burlington, Vt. in 2009. Job SeekersRatio of job seekers compared with $100K job postings in the area.
Washington, D.C. 2:1
San Francisco 4:1
Boston 6:1
New York 9:1
Los Angeles 10:1
Chicago 11:1
Detroit 29:1
20.8% Projected average unemployment rate in Detroit metro area in 2010.
4.9% Projected average unemployment rate in Lincoln, Nebr. in 2010. Projected Job GrowthAnnual job growth projections over the next three years.
Top Ten
1 Cedar Rapids, IA 3.9%
2 Huntsville, AL 3.8
3 McAllen, TX 3.5
4 Brownsville, TX 3.4
5 Mobile, AL 3.3
6 Columbus, GA 3.1
7 Albuquerque, NM 3.0
8 Montgomery, AL 2.8
9 San Antonio, TX 2.7
10 Des Moines, IA 2.7 From Forbes.com
Posted by: gardnergroup in The Economy, Building on
Apr 16, 2010
Central Texas builders started nearly 31 percent more homes in the first three months of this year compared with a year earlier, the first year-over-year quarterly increase in 3½ years and a sign the local housing market may be turning around. Residential Strategies Inc., a Texas market research and consulting firm specializing in homebuilding activity, reported that builders started work on 1,601 homes from January through March, up 30.6 percent from the same period last year. The last time there was a quarterly increase over the prior year was in the third quarter of 2006. First-quarter starts also were up 14 percent from the fourth quarter of 2009 . Much of the activity was concentrated in price ranges of less than $200,000 as buyers acted to take advantage of a federal tax credit that expires soon. Homes must be under contract by April 30 in order to qualify. Although the uptick in starts has been fueled largely by the tax credit, "the increased start activity is a positive sign and indicates that the anticipated housing recovery is now under way in Austin," said Tommy Tucker, Austin division manager for Residential Strategies. Other local analysts have said that 2010 could usher in the start of a rebound for the Austin economy and the local housing market. "When the U.S. economy improves, Austin will be one of the first markets that shows stronger growth in its housing market," said Eldon Rude, the Austin director for housing market research firm Metrostudy . Housing demand is tied to employment growth. If Austin sees the 2 percent job growth the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas is predicting for 2010, "this would certainly go a long way in extending the increase in housing demand we've seen thus far during the spring, and we would expect to see a more normalized pattern of housing growth through 2010," Tucker said. "However, without job creation, we expect housing activity in Austin to show only slight improvements over the 2009 performance." Although starts were up, builders closed nearly 25 percent fewer homes in the first quarter, with 1,617 compared with 2,150 a year ago. Tucker said closings reflect last year's drop-off in starts. However, closings are expected to rebound in the second quarter as builders and buyers rush to close homes before the tax credit expires, Tucker said. Metrostudy's Rude said that in most of the 33 markets nationwide where his company conducts its surveys, builders reported increased first-quarter sales in the lower price points because of the tax credit. "While in many parts of the country the end of the tax credit will likely result in slowing activity, in Austin I expect the market will continue to show slow improvement throughout 2010," Rude said. "With many prospective buyers in the Austin area postponing their decisions to purchase a home in recent years, and considering our continued population growth, some level of pent-up demand for housing will eventually translate into increased sales activity for both new homes and resales." On the supply side, Residential Strategies said there were 1,909 finished but vacant new houses, 9.6 percent fewer than a year ago. However, the 1,837 homes under construction was up nearly 9 percent from late last year, "to ensure that there would be sufficient inventory to satisfy demand stemming from the tax credit," Tucker said. Last year, D.R. Horton, Central Texas' largest homebuilder, built several hundred homes in the region to target first-time buyers who would qualify for the tax credit. Rob Hutton, president of Horton's Central Texas division, said the bet "turned out to be a good one." "We've sold most that we started late last year - primarily due to low interest rates and the tax credit - and quite frankly, we wish we had more," Hutton said. Noting that the job market has been gaining momentum in the region, Hutton said: "We continue to be bullish on Austin and believe that Central Texas is one of the best markets in the country in which to be doing business." By Shonda Novak, statesman.com
by Shonda Novak Central Texas home sales rose 5 percent in January from a year ago, the Austin Board of Realtors reported Thursday. January's median sales price rose 1 percent to $179,250. Real estate agents sold 884 previously owned homes in January, compared with 840 the same month last year. There were 1,417 sales pending, a 7 percent increase from a year earlier. John Horton, chairman of the Board of Realtors, said January 2009 marked the low point of the current cycle. "With steady improvement throughout 2009 that continued in January 2010, we can see that we're one year into the recovery in Austin," Horton said. "What's most important about this is that it's the kind of recovery we want: one that is steady, stable and consistent." Throughout 2009, the volume of single-family home sales in Austin improved steadily, Horton said. In the first half of 2009, the gap in year-over-year sales narrowed consistently, reaching levels similar to those in 2008 during the summer peak, with the exception of a dip in August, Horton said. By fall, sales began outperforming 2008. They surged in October and November, spurred by the original deadline for the first-time homebuyer tax credit. In December, sales returned to a modest increase, rising 5 percent from December 2008, a growth rate that held last month. "We're already seeing positive signs in sales volume and price appreciation," Horton said. "Those factors, combined with the population growth and additional jobs economists expect for our area in 2010, bode well for the long-term value of Austin real estate." from Statesman.com
Posted by: gardnergroup in The Economy, Job Market on
Mar 15, 2010
In recent weeks business in Washington, D.C. ground to a halt as record snowfalls pummeled the area and a sparring match over national health care reform hijacked the political conversation. But the nation's capital is getting something right: It is emerging from the recession better than any other major city in the country, according to research by Forbes. Jobs in Washington are growing quickly, and in 2008 the city produced more in goods and services than almost anywhere in the country. D.C. and nine other cities (among them: Boston, Los Angeles and a host of metros in Texas) are best surviving the downturn in part because they specialize in industries that are relatively insulated from economic volatility. Federal and state jobs all but guarantee the health of a local economy, and nowhere is there more government-related work than in Washington. The city has one of the lowest unemployment rates in the country, at 6.2%, and its output amounts to $362.3 billion, more than three times the average for the country's largest cities. List: Cities Where The Recession Is Easing It also saw a more modest slide in home sale prices than many other metros in late 2009. Cities where the recession's effects are lessening either never felt the full brunt of the housing crisis, or have proven resilient enough that demand is returning sooner than elsewhere in the country. These strong housing markets further enrich the local economy by feeding a host of secondary industries, like construction, lending and household services. Uncle Sam as a Recession Shield
Government spending hasn't hurt Austin, Texas, either. It's the seat of state government and tied for No. 1 on our list of 10 cities best surviving the recession. Jobs have been lost nearly everywhere in the last three years, but between December 2007 and December 2009 the number of jobs in Austin rose by 0.98%; more than any of the other major cities we looked at. And by three years from now, jobs are expected to grow by 8.09%, the second-best job outlook on our list. Third on the list is Dallas, home to a thriving technology and energy sector, where jobs are projected to jump 7.19% in three years. From Forbes.com
Realtors' group sees ‘slow, sustainable growth' in sales activity NEW YORK - Better news from the U.S. housing industry sent stocks higher Tuesday, including an increase in the number of people with contracts to buy homes. The National Association of Realtors, a trade group, said its index of sale contracts rose 1 percent in December. It was the ninth improvement over the past 10 months as buyers scrambled to take advantage of a first-time homebuyer tax credit before it was set to expire last November. "It's a slow, sustainable growth," said Daniel Penrod, senior industry analyst for the California Credit Union League. "Most people would prefer a quick rebound but that's not likely to happen." The home sales report was the latest bit of encouraging news on the economy. Stocks rose on Monday after a surprisingly strong reading on the manufacturing sector, and on Friday the government reported that the U.S. economy grew at an annual rate of 5.7 percent in the final three months of 2009, a faster pace than expected. Homebuilder stocks rose sharply after D.R. Horton Inc. posted its first profit since 2007 during its fiscal first quarter. Much of its $192 million profit during the October-December period came from a tax gain, but its revenue rose because of a 36 percent jump in home sales. Orders increased 45 percent. The reports brought a positive tone to the market, which stumbled in late January as concerns arose that the recovery might be stalling and that the market's 10-month advance was running out of gas. The Standard & Poor's 500 index fell 3.7 percent in January, its worst month since hitting a 12-year low nearly a year ago. According to preliminary calculations, the Dow rose 111.32, or 1.09 percent, to 10,296.85. The S&P 500 index rose 14.13, or 1.30 percent, to 1,103.32, while Nasdaq composite index advanced 18.86, or 0.87 percent, to 2,190.06. Bond prices inched higher. The yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note, which moves opposite its price, dipped to 3.64 percent from 3.66 percent late Monday. Click here for the rest of the article. Story by Associated Press
According to a January article from Realty Times, investors are once again gaining confidence in real estate as a solid investment. Low interest rates, low home prices, and a wealth of properties on the market are all contributors to this trend. To read the entire article, click here.
Austin-area home resales jumped 58 percent last month from November 2008 as buyers scrambled to take advantage of low mortgage interest rates and a tax credit for first-time buyers. But local experts don't expect those big percentage gains to continue. Sales could slow next year, they said, anticipating rising mortgage interest rates and the end of the tax credit, which Congress recently extended through April and expanded to additional buyers. November's percentage increase was the biggest in more than a decade and followed a 38 percent jump in October, according to the Austin Board of Realtors. However, the 997 sales in November 2008 were unusually low, reflecting the worsening economic downturn at the time. Last month, 1,576 homes were sold, the board said. The median price was $179,900, down 2 percent from a year ago. "The numbers are certainly welcome news," said David Reed, a senior loan officer with Austin-based Land Mortgage. "Fifty-eight percent is huge, even if you factor in the extra selling days in November compared to last year." With the median price holding relatively steady, "it's even better news still," Reed said. But the market isn't in the clear yet. More challenges are ahead because of "minimal prospects for short term improvement in the local economy and our job market," said Eldon Rude, local director for Metrostudy, a housing research firm. He said he doesn't expect the market to show strong growth "until the employment picture brightens and consumer confidence strengthens." Rude said the sharp increase in November resales "was definitely tied to the availability of the tax credit but was also related to the significant slowdown in sales activity late last year as the U.S. recession took hold." With the extension, first-time buyers may still qualify for up to $8,000, but other buyers can get up to $6,500. Buyers must have a house under contract by the end of April and close on the sale by the end of June. Year-over-year sales were up 31 percent in the Dallas area, also one of the biggest increases on record; 32.8 percent in Houston; and 52 percent in San Antonio. Reed said he thinks the tax credit alone wasn't enough to spur the Austin area's November surge. He said that interest rates of less than 5 percent also were a factor, as was the specter of rising rates. Reed predicted that interest rates will move into the mid- to high 5 percent range by the end of next year's first quarter. Some real estate agents voiced optimism about 2010. "It just seems like the numbers are going steadily up, along with the economy," said Nell Hurtado, an agent with JB Goodwin Realtors. "People have a different attitude. They're more upbeat about the economy." Reed said he still foresees "a positive year for sales growth in 2010 - just nothing like a robust November we just had." From statesman.com snovak@statesman.com; 445-3856
Posted by: gardnergroup in The Economy on
Oct 15, 2009
FROM STAFF REPORTS Tuesday, September 22, 2009 BBVA Compass economists said that Texas has fared better than most other states in the recession and forecast a return to growth in 2010. The bank, which last month bought Austin-based Guaranty Bank, has made a string of U.S. acquisitions in recent years and now has operations across the Sunbelt, stretching from Florida to California. Nathaniel Karp, BBVA Compass' chief economist, said the Sunbelt will see a quicker recovery than other parts of the country, partly because the region's housing market has begun to stabilize. However, he and other economists said in a report that the troubled commercial real estate markets could hinder the recovery. Some highlights from their report: - Texas will see its gross domestic product rise 1.7 percent in 2010, compared with a loss of 0.4 percent in 2009.
- The state will start adding jobs next year, for a 1.2 percent gain, compared with a 2.3 percent loss in 2009.
- Home sales in Texas will increase 4.5 percent in 2010, compared with a drop of 12.4 percent in 2009.
DOWNTOWN Kirk Gallery closing in 2nd Street District Jeff Kirk said he will close his downtown furniture store Oct. 18, just a year after Kirk Gallery opened in the Second Street District. Kirk said he had been unable to reach agreement with his landlord, AMLI Residential, on adjusting the terms of his lease. Last month, the City of Austin agreed to cut the rents of two other district tenants, Fit City Sports and Austin Java, whose owners said sales had been hurt by the recession and by construction of the W Austin Hotel and Residences. Both of those stores are in the City Hall building. AMLI Residential handles leasing for about 50 other stores and eateries in the district. Catherine DeStasio, AMLI's commercial marketing director, said she could not comment on details of the Kirk Gallery lease. But she said AMLI remains committed to working with Second Street District business owners facing economic challenges. Kirk, whose store sells vintage furniture and accessories, said he plans to open in another location eventually. from Statesman.com
Posted by: gardnergroup in The Economy, Job Market on
Sep 08, 2009
Entrepreneur magazine's August issue ranks Austin the tenth-best start-up city in America. The magazine's look at new business-friendly cities addresses issues such as government incentives, population growth, affordability of commercial rents, and openness to new ideas. Entrepreneur calls Austin the "cross-pollinator" among the top 10 cities. The magazine cites the multiple "scenes" that shape Austin, from music to tech, and how they feed off of one another. "Theoretically, people here are competing, but the opposite is happening," Bijoy Goswami, founder of Bootstrap Austin told Entrepreneur. "Part of that Texas ethos has percolated into the entrepreneur scene: People in Austin just treat each other well." The magazine also highlighted Sweet Leaf Tea Co-founder Clayton Christopher as an example of one of Austin's brightest business minds. "There's a cachet attached to Austin," Christopher said. "It's the live-music capital of the world; it has good Texas values. Having Austin on our bottles has been a huge benefit." The top ten cities in order are Las Vegas, Portland, Ore., Orlando, Fla., San Diego, Phoenix, Chapel Hill, N.C., Atlanta, Madison, Wis., Youngstown, Ohio, and Austin, Texas. From Austin Business Journal
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