Recovery in sight for the Austin economy?

By American Statesman staff
Monday, June 15, 2009, 10:44 AM

Austin’s economy has stabilized, and while it remains “mired in recession,” economists at Wells Fargo said that the foundation is being built for a recovery.

“Austin’s economy is already on the mend, or at least has not continued to fall,” said a new report from Wells Fargo Economics.
The area’s labor market continues to grow jobs and a business cycle index compiled by the Dallas Federal Reserve, while down from a year ago, appears to have bottomed out, the report said.

READ MORE

Once again, Austin leads U.S. in big city job growth

FROM THE AMERICAN-STATESMAN
Thursday, June 04, 2009

The Austin area had the nation's strongest job market among big cities last month, according to data released Wednesday by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Among the 38 metro areas with a work force of at least 750,000, only Austin gained jobs from April 2008 to April 2009, the bureau said.

READ MORE

Builder Magazine Study Names Austin #2 Best Housing Market

Nine years ago, during the tech bust, some builders felt that Austin was too crowded and left. The bloom is back on Austin’s yellow rose now; it moved up the leader board to become the sixth largest home building market last year. Job creation explains the move. While other markets lost employment, Austin added 17,400 jobs last year, 2.3 percent growth rate. It helps that Austin is home to both a major university, The University of Texas, and the state capital. Existing homes cost a little bit more in Austin than other Texas markets, roughly $188,600, but that’s still below the national average. Also, Austin is one of the few metro areas in the country where median prices actually rose in 2008--2.7 percent. Amazingly, Austin now generates more home building activity than Chicago, which has six times more people.

READ MORE

Austin Metro Projected to Grow to 2.7 Million by 2025

The population of the Austin metro area will grow to more than 2.7 million by the year 2025, according to an analysis of government data by bizjournals. The projected growth rate of Austin and its suburbs ranks 5th among 250 U.S. metropolitan areas studied in the report. Bizjournals forecasts that the Austin-Round Rock area will grow nearly 87 percent from its 2005 estimated population of nearly 1.5 million to a 2025 projected population of 2.7 million, an increase of nearly 1.3 million residents.

READ MORE