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Austin Housing Market a BargainThursday, January 31, 2008 - 2:32 PM CST Austin economy spanks the competitionAustin Business Journal High-tech, a booming film industry and the University of Texas all helped propel Austin to the top of Forbes' 2008 list of America's Fastest Growing Metros. The magazine ranked Austin No. 1 among the nation's 100 largest metropolitan areas. The list sorted cities by their anticipated gross domestic product growth between 2007 and 2012. Austin's GMP, or the value of goods and services produced in the area, is expected to climb 32 percent over the five-year period. Forbes credits the local boom to high-tech employers like Dell Inc. (NASDAQ: DELL) and IBM (NYSE: IBM) as well as the University of Texas, which is producing ample engineering talent. Other cities that ranked high on the list include Atlanta, Seattle, Orlando, Houston and San Jose, Calif. The Forbes article points out that all of those cities share several key characteristics with Austin: They are tech hubs in close proximity to universities with growing population bases. Forbes used GMP forecasts provided by Moody's Economy.com. The regions of the country with the fastest growing metro areas overall are the Southeast and West. Forbes credits the lower costs of living and doing business in those areas for their higher anticipated performance. Texas homes are some of the most undervalued in the nation, report says. AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF Wednesday, December 26, 2007 Austin and other Texas housing markets are among the most undervalued in the nation, according to a new analysis of data by Global Insight Inc. and National City Corp. The companies looked at prices in 333 metro areas in the third quarter of 2007. Such reports are considered important indicators of potential decline and growth in specific cities. In calculating valuations, the companies used a complex statistical model that included prices, interest rates, household incomes, population density and any historical premiums or discounts for each market. The percentage of over- and undervaluations is intended to reflect where a housing market's price should be. In Austin, and in Texas overall, recent rapid increases in home prices never occurred, so the state has avoided the real estate bubble that has plagued coastal areas. If a city's housing is over- or undervalued by up to 14 percent, it is still considered within a fair market range. Anything outside that range means a considerable over- or undervaluation. For instance, Austin, at -9.1 percent, is in the fair market range, while Dallas, at -28.1 percent, is considered undervalued. The writers of the report, "House Prices in America," caution about overinterpreting the data. For instance, though homes in Bend, Ore., are overvalued by 70 percent, that does not necessarily mean prices in that city are expected to fall that much in the near future. Magazine: Texas No. 1 in Economic DevelopmentAustin Business Journal Wednesday, January 9, 2008 Texas is getting top economic development honors from a publication that informs and tracts corporate relocations. Based on a state-by-state survey of economic development deals over the last 12 months, Business Facilities magazine named Texas--with a total of $15.4 billion in investment and 9,335 jobs to be created from new projects--its State of the Year for 2007. States were asked to submit information on their five largest economic development projects by both job creation and total investment over the last year. Twenty-six states completed surveys and Texas was far and away the leader, according to Business Facilities. The five projects Texas entered for expansion were Rackspace Managed Hosting with 5,000 jobs; Fidelity Investments, with 1,535 jobs; Maxim Integrated Products, with 1,000 jobs; Fluor Corp. (NYSE: FLR), with 1,000 jobs; and Dimensional Fund Advisors, with 800 jobs. The top five Texas projects by investment were Motiva Enterprises, with $7 billion; NRG Energy Inc. (NYSE: NRG), with $5.4 billion; Eastman Chemical Co. (NYSE: EMN), with $1.6 billion; Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ: MSFT), with $985 million; and CitiCorp, with $450 million. |
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 Nathan and Rhonda Bedard RE/MAX Lago Area P.O. Box 4608 Lago Vista, TX 78645 Nate: (512)786-8872 Rhonda: (512)415-9298 Fax: (512)267-1240 Email The Bedard Team |
