The Austin-Round Rock area tied for first on a list of large metros where the recession is easing.
Central Texas tied Washington D.C. in the Forbes.com ranking that compiles job growth and real estate industry improvement, among other indicators. Washington has one of the lowest unemployment rates in the nation, 6.2 percent, and the city produced more goods and services than another other in 2008.
Austin has also maintained relatively lower jobless rates, though the number increased to 7.6 percent last month from 7 percent, according to the Texas Workforce Commission. Statewide, the rate was unchanged at 8.2 percent from December to January, compared to 9.7 percent nationally.
Austin and Washington D.C. also benefit from their high government job generation, according to Forbes. The number of Central Texas jobs increased just shy of 1 percent between 2007 and 2009, more than any other city included in the research.
Dallas came in second on the ranking behind Austin. The number of jobs there are expected to increase more than 7 percent in the next three years. San Antonio and Houston also made the top 10 list.
Job growth projections were based on information from Moody’s. The listing also considered median home sale price changes and Metropolitan Gross Domestic Product.
March 19th, 2010
Real Estate Outlook: Positive Signs of Recovery
by Kenneth R. Harney
Positive signs on employment and national economic growth should start being felt in the housing market in the coming several months, say top economists.
The Labor Department reports that there were 2.7 million job openings last month — 200,000 more than in the same survey the month before.
Meanwhile, the consensus forecast among private and government economists for the main barometer of the U.S. economy’s health, gross domestic product or GDP, is for a very solid 3 percent during the first quarter.
Alan Levenson, chief economist for T.Rowe Price Associates, said the latest reports are “indicative of a labor market and economy that is in the midst of recovery.”
That’s hugely important for real estate because expanding employment created by a rowing national economy are the essential fuels to power housing demand and sales.
Even though harsh weather conditions knocked the wind out of pending home sales and real estate shopping in many areas during January and February, analysts say the spring and summer market should be strong.
Lawrence Yun, chief economist for the National Association of Realtors, says the $8,000 and $6,500 federal home purchase tax credits that expire at the end of April for signed contracts — and the end of June for closed deals — should squeeze a lot of sales volume into the spring and early summer months.
Assuming slow but steady improvement in the jobs picture, Yun forecasts a solid second half of the year as well.
On the home pricing front, evidence continues to mount that in most parts of the country, home values have either bottomed out or have turned positive.
The most recent Case- Shiller index numbers on the top 20 metropolitan markets bear that out — and last week’s Zillow home value report found values essentially flat on a national average basis. They were down by just three tenths of a percent, but up in some major markets of note.
For example, Boston’s home values are up nearly two percent year-over-year, according to Zillow, and Los Angeles, San Diego, Denver and Philadelphia have registered gains after long periods of negative numbers.
Two other statistical hints that conditions are improving: The difference between listed prices and selling prices of home nationwide is now smaller than it’s been in a year, according to real estate research site Trulia.com.
And Realty Trac fond that foreclosures, which are clearly still a massive drag on the market — dropped by two percent last month — the second straight month of decline.
In a tough market, I guess we should appreciate even the smallest of improvements.
Published: March 15, 2010
March 19th, 2010
Cities Where the Recession Is Easing
by Francesca Levy
Friday, March 5, 2010
In these metro areas, jobs are projected to grow and the housing crisis is stabilizing.
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.
Click here to see the full list below
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.
Behind the Numbers
To find the cities where the recession was easing, Forbes looked for a relatively low unemployment rate, using December 2009 figures, the most recent available, and the rate of job growth between December 2007 and December 2009, both from the Bureau of Labor statistics. We sought cities where economists expected that jobs would keep growing, based on the three-year job-growth forecast from Moody’s Economy.com; we also looked for metros with the highest positive change in median sale price for single-family homes between the third and fourth quarter of 2009, according to the National Association of Realtors. Finally, we factored in Metropolitan Gross Domestic Product–the dollar amount of goods and services produced within a metro area–provided for 2008, the most recent available, by Moody’s.
Forbes ranked the 40 largest Metropolitan Statistical Areas for which it had comprehensive data (that excludes Nashville, Tennn. and Detroit, Mich.) on all these measures, then averaged the rankings for a final score.
Good Fortune in the Lone Star State
If one state is a poster child for economic recovery, it’s Texas, home to four of the 10 cities on our list. There’s more to why Austin, Dallas, San Antonio and Houston are faring well than just the state’s energy industry. The tech, government and education industries supplement the oil state’s riches. As for housing, cities in Texas didn’t see the same run-up in home prices and rampant speculation that led to the spectacular bubble burst elsewhere in the country.
“The housing market got lucky, if you want to look at it that way,” says James P. Gaines, research economist at the Real Estate Center at Texas A&M University. “We didn’t have excessive overbuilding, so we don’t have a big overhang of unsold new homes, and because Texas has among most affordable housing in the country, the demand sustained.”
Like Austin and Dallas, Houston, tied for No. 4 on the list, is expected to experience a three-year 7.03% rise in jobs. But nowhere are jobs projected to grow more than in San Antonio, where four military bases should help drive its expected 8.32% increase.
Hope Where Housing Markets Stay Afloat
California was perhaps hit hardest by the housing crisis. In spite of that, Los Angeles rises above the rest of the state, and other big cities in the country, to No. 9 on our list. Although the Golden State’s real estate woes began earlier and were more pronounced than in large parts of the country, they began easing sooner.
Los Angeles has strong banking and finance industries and a housing market that, while it suffered from a major pricing bubble and bust, has seen a resurgence of demand. After falling to a median $311,100 in the second quarter of 2009, home sale prices there jumped 11% in the third quarter and another 2% between the third and fourth quarter of 2009 to a median $342,700, according to the National Association of Realtors, making number four in sales price improvement out of our 40 cities.
Although it’s across the country, Boston, No. 8 on the list, has some of the same characteristics that make Los Angeles recession-resistant. Like the City of Angels, it is a cosmopolitan city and an educational center, chock full of amenities and jobs. Unemployment is below the 9.7% national average, at 8.2%, and the city pumped out a healthy $284.3 billion GDP in 2008.
Bright Lights in the Midwest
Many former manufacturing centers in the Midwest suffer from pronounced economic troubles that began before–and will likely extend beyond–the country’s recession. But that’s not the case in two Midwest cities, Minneapolis and Kansas City, Nos. 4 and 10 on our list, respectively. Incidentally, Kansas City has extra cause to celebrate its appearance on this list: it’s also No. 13 on Forbes’ list of the 20 most miserable cities. High taxes, crime rates and poorly performing sports teams landed it on that list, which ranked cities on nine metrics, most of them non-economic (for example, pollution, government corruption and commute times). A promising economic outlook should give Kansas City residents reason to feel less miserable.
In Minneapolis unemployment is a relatively low 7.2%. The Twin Cities have moved away from their manufacturing roots and are headquarters to major companies including Cargill and General Mills. Although Kansas City, Missouri’s largest city, has lost jobs in the last three years, it has done so at a slower rate than most other cities, only dropping 2.7%, thanks in part to a strong education sector and a diversity of industry.
The cities quickest to emerge from the recession benefit from evergreen industries like government, defense, education and technology–sectors that will always provide work, even in a national slump. In addition, these 10 cities are diverse; their fortunes aren’t invested solely in one industry, giving them good prospects for the future.
1. (Tie) Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, D.C.-Va.-Md.-W.Va.
IStock
Unemployment Rank: 1
Home Price Rank: 26
Metropolitan Gross Domestic Product Rank: 3
Three-Year Job Growth Forecast Rank: 17
Job Growth, 2007-2009 Rank: 3
1. (Tie) Austin-Round Rock, Texas
IStock
Unemployment Rank: 3
Home Price Rank: 13
Metropolitan Gross Domestic Product Rank: 31
Three-Year Job Growth Forecast Rank: 2
Job Growth, 2007-2009 Rank: 1
3. Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington, Texas
IStock
Unemployment Rank: 9
Home Price Rank: 25
Metropolitan Gross Domestic Product Rank: 11
Three-Year Job Growth Forecast Rank: 3
Job Growth, 2007-2009 Rank: 5
4. (Tie) Minneapolis-St. Paul-Bloomington, Minn.-Wis.
IStock
Unemployment Rank: 5
Home Price Rank: 12
Metropolitan Gross Domestic Product Rank: 14
Three-Year Job Growth Forecast Rank: 13
Job Growth, 2007-2009 Rank: 18
4. (Tie) Houston-Sugar Land-Baytown, Texas
March 9th, 2010
Real Estate Outlook: Positive Movement
by Kenneth R. Harney
It’s a fairly rare event, but now and then most of the important economic directional signs go positive, and this is one of those weeks.
Let’s start with pending home sales. After a big decline in November, they bounced back on purchase contracts signed in December and now point to an even stronger spring market.
Pending sales gained one percent nationally, 5.2 percent regionally in the Midwest, 2.3 percent in the Northeast, 2.2 percent in the South, but lost 3.8 percent in the West.
Lawrence Yun, chief economist for the National Association of Realtors, which conducts the pending sales survey, said the swings from month to month are “masking the underlying trend (in housing), which is a broad improvement over year-ago levels.”
December’s pending sales contracts were 11 percent higher than December 2008’s.
Yun also predicts that that the two home purchase tax credits — the extended $8,000 credit and the new $6,500 credit — will have a significant impact on closed sales in the coming several months.
He forecasts that the two credits combined will stimulate 2.4 million sales in 2010, and most of that activity will be compressed into the first six months of the year.
The U.S. economy also is showing signs of unexpectedly vigorous growth. The GDP or gross domestic product — that’s the yardstick the government uses to gauge where the economy is headed — grew at a rate of 5.7 percent in the fourth quarter of last year — much faster than the consensus forecast by economists, which was in the four and a half percent range.
Manufacturing, obviously a key employment sector and important for real estate, also is showing signs of a faster rebound. Manufacturing orders were up four percent in January, according to the Institute for Supply Management, and hit the highest point since August of 2004.
Meanwhile, Frank Nothaft, chief economist for financing giant Freddie Mac, says he does not see a “double dip” in economic growth ahead, where the rebound loses steam mid-year after several strong quarters of growth.
In a discussion with Realty Times, Nothaft said that although mortgage rates are likely to rise to the mid or even upper five percent range, he sees a steady expansion of housing activity ahead for the rest of the year.
Mortgage rates last week stayed flat around 5 percent for 30 year fixed loans, and 4.3 percent for 15 year terms. Applications for mortgages to purchase homes took off big time, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association — they rose nearly 18 percent for the week.
Published: February 9, 2010
http://realtytimes.com/rtpages/20100209_realestateoutlook.htm
Kenneth R. Harney writes an award-winning, nationally-syndicated column on housing and real estate from Washington, D.C. He is also managing director of the National Real Estate Development Center, a professional education company. He is a past member of the Federal Reserve Board’s Consumer Advisory Council, a committee that by federal statute reviews all Fed actions on home mortgage, consmer credit and banking industry regulation.
He served as a member of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Working Group on Computerized Loan Origination (CLO) systems, and is a member of the Editorial Board of the Fannie Mae Foundation’s journal, Housing Policy Debate. He is the author of two books on mortgage finance and real estate.
February 12th, 2010