Austin Leading Recovery

A recent report by the Brookings Institution assesses how metropolitian areas around the world performed during the current global economic downturn. Here is a quick summary from the Austin Chamber of Commerce showing the top US cities. Does your city make the list?Living in Austin, it certainly gives me one more reason to be grateful for where I live given that it was ranked number one. If your city isn't on the list, hopefully it will be turning around soon. I think we'll all be happy to see this "Great Recession" behind us as soon as possible!

If you'd like to see how you stack up internationally, here's is a chart from the global summary showing the top 75 cities.

Of course if you'd like all the details, I'd check out the entire report.

Facebook Likely to Move Here

The Austin Business Journal is reporting that it looks likely that Facebook will open a 200-person office here. Why Austin?

“Facebook continues to grow and Austin, with its deep talent pool, would allow us to hire the high-caliber employees we need to properly serve the people, advertisers and developers that rely on our service,” Facebook Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg said.

We'd love to have them! Austin is a great place to live.

Best of the Rest

Once again, reports are coming out saying Austin is one of the healthiest cities in America in terms of its housing market. It doesn't mean we haven't been through a rough patch, but with continued population growth and low housing starts, our medium-term outlook is bright.

Here are some excerpts from Builder Magazine:

"Even though it took a step backward during the last six months, Austin happens to be the only market on our list that is genuinely close to healthy. Home prices, which rose in 2008, finally declined this year—they are down 4.6% through September—as this Texas metro ended a long run of employment growth and lost some jobs. But its population has expanded by 4.3% during the first half of 2009, which should add housing demand and help firm up home pricing.....Still, unemployment in this progressive city runs only about 7%, significantly below the national average.....Austin continues to draw population, especially retirees, with its low cost of living, inexpensive housing, and warm-weather climate. The city had the third highest household growth rate in percentage terms among the top 100 market."

More Money From Washington?

Well, it's beginning to look like Washington is going to extend its current tax credit for first-time home buyers...and expand it to those who have lived in their current home for five years and meet other income requirements. From U.S. News and World Report:

An extension of the $8,000 first-time home buyer tax credit appears all but certain after the Obama administration called on Congress to give house hunters more time to claim the popular tax perk.

If this goes through, expect the real estate market in Austin to continue its recovery--not that it was ever that bad compared to most of the country. In looking at the latest data from September for residential single-family home sales, it's clear that the market has been recovering since the summer, with the latest figures showing sales outstripping last year's figures and approaching 2007 levels. Neither of those year's was great in September, but the fact that the data is turning upward is a good sign.

My advice if you're looking to buy in Austin: Do it sooner rather than later. As the job market here continues to recover and people continue flocking to Austin, it will almost certainly help put upward pressure on home prices again--not at the rate we saw several years back, but positive nonetheless.

The Light is Coming (Slowly)

MSNBC and Moody's Economy.com just released some encouraging data showing that Austin is among the first U.S. cities to move from "recession" to "recovering." Moody's Adversity Index--aptly named!--uses employment, industrial production, housing starts, and home prices to calculate an index that shows the status of metro areas around the country. The next step from "recovering" will be "expanding." Several other Texas cities also made the list (none in California did!).

For more details and to see an interesting interactive chart, check out the story from MSNBC. Or if you want to dig a little deeper, check out the brief profile from Moody's showing how they're expecting Austin to recover more quickly than the rest of the country with a relatively strong showing over the next several years. As if we needed more reasons to love Austin!

What does this tell you about timing the housing market? Unfortunately, it probably tells you that you missed the "bottom"...but that it's still a great time to buy. Timing markets is tough in the best of circumstances. If you have a medium- to long-term horizon, Austin's prospects look very bright!

Austin Employment to Lead

A forecast by IHS Global Insights says Austin and San Antonio will lead the nation's employment recovery, with other Texas cities following suit.

Austin and San Antonio will bounce back to their pre-recession job levels sometime next year, according to the economic forecasting firm....

If this forecast proves accurate, it will bode well for Austin homes values given that the level of employment is one of the indicators affecting housing demand.

National Homes Prices Interactive Chart

This is a great interactive chart Realtor.org created showing changes in median home price and volume over time. If you look at the changes in price using the "trails" option, it shows that the West and Northeast were the hardest hit from this housing crisis in terms of price drops. The Midwest and South only saw moderate declines. Check it out here.