Austin's relative affordability and number of job opportunities has helped it rank first on Forbes.com's list of the nation's best bargain cities.
To determine which U.S. cities are the best bargains, Forbes.com looked at the country's 50 largest U.S. metropolitan areas. Researchers assigned cities points across four data sets: average salary for workers with a bachelor's degree or higher; annual unemployment statistics; cost of living; and the Housing Opportunity Index that measures the amount of homes sold in a given area that would be affordable to a family earning the local median income.
The other major Texas cities--Houston, San Antonio, Dallas and Ft. Worth--were also among the top 10 best bargains. But none come close to Austin where the 5.5 percent unemployment rate is the best in the country and about half the national average.
Austin has lured another Aussie software maker. Sydney-based Interspire, which sells e-commerce, e-mail marketing and content management software, is putting its North American headquarters here and is hiring sales, marketing and technical support workers. "At first, San Francisco seemed like the obvious choice, but once we started hearing about Austin and what it had to offer as far as talent and real estate, it was clear this is where we should be," said Interspire CEO Eddie Machaalani, who will be here until July getting operations off the ground. In March, Red Oxygen, based in Brisbane, Australia, also picked Austin over San Francisco as the site of its North American hub. CEO Thom Sheahan said he chose Austin in the end because of its information technology base, its entrepreneurial environment and its lower cost of living. Eight-year-old Red Oxygen, which sells text-messaging software to large companies including Microsoft Corp. and Panasonic Corp., is hiring sales and customer support here. Austin business leaders say they're seeing an increase in interest from companies interested in moving to or expanding in Austin. Michelle Johnson, economic development manager for the Greater Austin Chamber of Commerce, said the majority of prospects are based in California and are seeking a lower-cost business environment. "We're a lot cheaper than California, and that is a big draw right now," Johnson said. Last week, for example, motherboard maker Corvalent Corp. officially opened its new Cedar Park headquarters and manufacturing center. The company had been based in Silicon Valley for 16 years, but CEO Ed Trevis said Central Texas has pluses such as a strong talent base and lower housing costs. The company has about 20 employees now and plans to add about 30 more within the next two years. This year, the chamber has had 65 prospect visits from the West Coast and elsewhere, including 24 in March and 14 in April. Interspire was founded in 2003, after Machaalani began looking for content-management software for a Web design company he was starting and couldn't find anything that suited his needs. He built his own solution and then met Mitchell Harper, who also had created a Web content software. Together they launched Interspire. The company, which has raised no outside funding, expects to have revenue of $8 million in 2009, up from $4 million in 2008, and is profitable, Machaalani said. Its software is used by 35,000 companies, most of them small and midsized. Among them is SatPhoneCity, a Canadian company that sells satellite communications equipment and used Interpsire to build and manage its e-commerce Web site. "I'm a nontechie, so I needed something that was easy to use, as well as affordable," said SatPhoneCity founder Chris Hallam. "I paid under $500 for the software and was able to get the whole thing up and running on my own." Interspire, which has 35 employees worldwide, has four employees at its new offices on North MoPac Boulevard (Loop 1) and is hiring 20 more, Machaalani said. The recruiting experience has been far different in Austin than in Sydney, he said. "In Sydney, it's very hard to find people in the high-tech space, and here I have found excellent talent just by getting on LinkedIn," he said. "We're getting résumés from really experienced people from places like Dell and Postini. I'm interviewing executives who were at Dell for 10 years. "That's amazing for us" he said. "And it's a really great way to build our company." lhawkins@stateman.com; 912-5955 Lori Hawkins covers startups and venture capital for the Statesman.
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Monday, May 25, 2009
Lenders have posted a $43.7 million resort home development on the north shore of Lake Travis for foreclosure, according to RexReport.com, a San Antonio company that tracks foreclosures. The posting includes land and lots in several subdivisions owned by MDR Hollows LP, the developer of the Hollows resort, which is in both Jonestown and Lago Vista. Spokespeople for MDR Hollows did not respond to requests for comment. But Paige Saenz, Jonestown's city attorney, said Friday that city officials are in touch with the developers and are waiting for them to explain their plans. "We've given them until next week." Saenz said. "We would like for this to be worked out so the project can keep going." Lago Vista City Manager Bill Angelo said he had not heard about the foreclosure but said he knew the project had lost an investor and had stopped construction. "I'm not totally surprised, with the economic conditions that exist out there," he said. "We're hoping that it will turn around." Angelo said he and his staff intend to meet with the developers soon. The resort's Web site describes the Hollows as "a paradise deep in the heart of Texas." The development includes casitas priced between $420,000 and $650,000, home sites ranging from $94,500 to $119,500 and villas costing between $180,000 and $550,000. The Travis Central Appraisal District lists MDR Hollows as the owner of 212 pieces of land. The resort's amenities include a marina, beach club and hiking trails. It's not clear whether those are part of the foreclosure. Macfarlan Capital Partners LP, a Dallas-based real estate investment firm, bought the Hollows and other developments last year from a subsidiary of Centex Homes. Macfarlan paid $181 million for five properties, which included the Waters at Horseshoe Bay on Lake LBJ, Pointe West in Galveston and properties in other states. Macfarlan's Terramesa Resort Properties division oversees the Hollows and the other properties. The Hollows is one of the largest recent commercial foreclosures in Central Texas. In March, lenders foreclosed on the $120 million River Place Corporate Park in far Northwest Austin. Last month, lenders foreclosed on the Hill Country Galleria in Bee Cave, which had been unable to refinance a $192 million construction loan. teaton@statesman.com; 445-3631
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Saturday, May 23, 2009
Some of the riskiest searches on the Internet today are associated either with finding items for free -- such as music or screensavers -- or looking for work that can be done from home, Internet security company McAfee Inc. reported Wednesday.
Santa Clara, Calif.-based McAfee (NYSE:MFE) released a report on the Web's most dangerous search terms that said during the recession it observed a growing number of malicious search results targeted at people who want to save money or earn extra income working at home.
McAfee researched more than 2,600 popular keywords (as defined by Google Zeitgeist, Yahoo Buzz and others sources) to assess the degree of risk for each. Maximum risk refers to the maximum percentage of risky sites a user might encounter on a single page of search results.
As defined by McAfee, the riskiest set of keyword variations was “screensavers” with a maximum risk of 59.1 percent. Nearly six out of the top 10 search results for “screensavers” contain malware. One of the single riskiest search terms in the world is “lyrics,” with a maximum risk factor of one in two. Surprisingly, searches using the word Viagra, a popular keyword that is also common in spam e-mail messages, yielded the fewest risky sites. Searches with the safest risk profile included health-related terms and searches about the current economic crisis.
Consumers looking to save money or searching for means of additional income should take note: searchers clicking on results that contain the word “free” have a 21.3 percent chance of infecting their PCs with online threats, such as spyware, spam, phishing, adware, viruses and other malware. “Work from home” searches can be as much as four times riskier than the average risk for all popular terms, McAfee said.
The term "free work from home" carried a 40 percent maximum risk, with variants of that phrase carrying risks from 20 percent up.
A panel of 45 U.S. economists expects a "modest" economic rebound to begin in the second half of 2009, picking up steam in 2010, the National Association for Business Economics said Wednesday.
"The panel ... [predicts] positive, albeit modest, growth in the third quarter, followed by steady improvement thereafter," the NABE outlook report said. "On the whole, however, the economic rebound lacks luster. Real GDP growth over the second half of 2009 is expected to average a well-below-trend 1.2 percent pace."
The forecasters surveyed said growth in 2010 "is slated for a return to near its historical trend, with real GDP rising 2.7 percent on a fourth-quarter-to-fourth quarter basis. ... [But] next year's expected growth in GDP would be considerably more moderate than the typical rebound following a steep decline."
The economists said that labor conditions nationwide "are expected to deteriorate further, with additional, but decreasing job losses through year-end."
They predicted that the nation will have lost 4.5 million jobs by the end of 2009, driving the unemployment rate to 9.8 percent, but that the rate should ease to 9.3 percent by the end of 2010.
In Georgia, unemployment has tracked higher than the national rate for 18 consecutive months. But the Peach State's unemployment rate also has held steady at just above 9 percent for three straight months.
The "NABE Outlook" report presents a consensus of macroeconomic expectations from a panel of 45 professional forecasters. The survey was taken Apr. 27-May 11.
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