God Bless TX! 5 TX Cities Top Builder Magazines Healthiest Housing Markets!

AUSTIN NAMED 2ND HEALTHIEST HOUSING MARKET IN NATION
Five Texas cities swept the top spots on Builder magazine's list of "Healthiest Housing Markets for 2009." Houston ranked first, Austin second, Fort Worth third, San Antonio fourth and Dallas fifth.

1. Houston, Texas
2008 Total Building Permits: 42,697

They like to do things big in Houston. Now the metro area, home to nearly 5.8 million people, can lay claim to being the largest home building market in the country, with 42,697 building permits. The market is still benefiting from an influx of population and jobs and rebuilding in the wake of Hurricane Ike.

Employment rose 2.2 percent last year, representing the addition of an incredible 57,000 new jobs. Home building activity in Houston has only fallen 31 percent since 2005. Also, existing home prices actually rose in Houston last year, 2.8 percent, to $160,200, still a very affordable level. Roughly one third of the home building action is in Harris County, followed by Houston proper and Fort Bend County. One of Houston's largest builders, Royce Homes, shut down last year, and Kimball Hill, one of the biggest builders in Texas, closed its doors this year after it failed to find a buyer.

2 Austin, Texas
2008 Total Building Permits: 14,250

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, 2.31 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 $190,900, 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--1.4 percent through the first three quarters of the year. Amazingly, Austin now generates more home building activity than Chicago, which has six times more people. (WOW!)

3. Fort Worth, Texas
2008 Total Building Permits: 10,388

Fort Worth, always operating in the shadow of higher profile Dallas, nevertheless can currently claim to have a slightly healthier housing market, based on its employment growth, relatively strong permit activity, and inexpensive housing. Now the 14th largest home building market in the country, Ft. Worth's builders pulled 10,388 permits last year, roughly two-thirds of them single-family.

That may be half as many as 2005, but many other major markets showed much sharper drop-offs. The relative strength of the Fort Worth market in recent years stems from its ties to the oil and gas industries, which has fueled above-average job growth. The metro area added 17,300 jobs last year.

4. San Antonio, Texas
2008 total building permits: 10,261

San Antonio is another Texas market that is still adding jobs, about 15,000 new jobs last year. A city of more than 2 million people now, its population is also growing, at a 2.8 percent annual clip through the third quarter of last year. Existing home prices are barely declining in San Antonio, down only 1.8 percent in the last year, leaving the median price of an existing single-family home at an affordable $154,400, 25 percent below the national average of $200,500, according to the National Association of Realtors. The upper end of the housing market was hurt recently when AT&T announced it would be moving its corporate headquarters to Dallas.

5. Dallas, Texas
2008 total building permits: 26,145

In a year when permits declined 35 percent nationally, Dallas only experienced a 9 percent fall-off. With a population of 4.2 million, Dallas was the third largest home building market last year, as measured in permits pulled. Employers in Dallas, a popular place for corporate relocation and expansion, added 42,000 new jobs last year, a growth rate of 2 percent.

Existing home prices have held steady, falling a paltry 2.3 percent in the last year, Interestingly, the face of residential construction has changed dramatically in Dallas in recent years; 58 percent of the activity last year was in multifamily, compared to a five-year average of 23 percent. The relative stability of the market, though, wasn't enough to prevent Wall Homes from filing for bankruptcy earlier this year. On the other hand, former Meritage co-CEO John Landon recently started a new Dallas-based home building company.

Other real estate market numbers...fyi it's not pretty people!

In December, national housing prices fell 11.1% from a year ago. As of the end of 2008, the total value of residential properties was $19.1 trillion, down $2.4 trillion from $21.5 trillion in December of 2007.
Home price declines have accelerated the last few months due to the rapid geographic diffusion.

As of December 2008, more than 700 CBSAs or nearly three-quarters of all metropolitan markets were experiencing home price depreciation, up from 254 markets in December 2007 and 394 markets in June 2008. The number of metropolitan markets experiencing price declines is by far the highest ever.

Since US home prices peaked in July 2006, they have declined 19.3% on a cumulative basis and are currently back to the lowest price level since May 2004.

California continued to lead the way, declining 26.9 percent from a year ago, but Nevada (-26.5%) is closing the gap, followed by Arizona (-21.1%), Florida (-19.5%), and Rhode Island (-19.0%). The largest acceleration in home price declines during the fourth quarter of 2008 occurred in Maine, Pennsylvania, Arkansas, Oregon and Rhode Island.

Thank God we live in Texas. :D
Hook'em Horns!

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