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May 27, 2008

Quoting from The ShowCase USA article, “San Antonio Housing Market On Leading Edge of Recovery.”

There is a general consensus that the United States is in the midst of a mild recession that will be documented by the end of the summer,” said Jack Inselmann, Vice President of the U.S. Central Division of Metrostudy, a national housing tracking and consulting company. “By the time it is documented, it may already be over. The homebuilding industry is working determinedly to rid itself of any excess inventory, and in many markets that process will be completed this year giving rise to some moderate optimism for 2009.

According to Metrostudy’s first quarter 2008 San Antonio new-home analysis, the current pace of new single-family construction activity totaled 11,445 annual starts and 14,527 annual closings. “This places San Antonio among the 10 most-active housing markets in the U.S.,” Inselmann said. “With the consistent effort of builders to reduce the excess new-home inventory that remains, closings continue to outpace starts.”

As forecast by Metrostudy, 2008 housing starts will continue their correction for most of the year before having a chance to bottom out by the end of the year. Even though the expected market decline is in full force, San Antonio remains one of the healthiest markets in the country, Inselmann said. As of March-2008, San Antonio was ranked ninth job growth, with 18,900 jobs gained (2.3 percent), when compared to metropolitan areas nationwide. In addition , Texas is gaining jobs at a rate of 209,000, a 2 percent rate that is far above that of New York (the second-ranked state), which posted a rate of 70,300 job gains.

According to the latest figures released by the Office of Federal Housing enterprise Oversight (OFHEO), in 2007, San Antonio experienced a home price appreciation of 8.3 percent, which places it 21st when compared to metropolitan areas nationwide. “However, when you look at the analysis by metropolitan areas that have a population of at least 1 million and more than 10,000 new home starts and closings, San Antonio is ranked first in home price appreciation,” Inselmann said. “And in terms of housing inventory, San Antonio maintains one of the lowest levels of new-home inventory when compared to other housing markets in the U.S. Though we consistently hear of extremely distressed housing markets around the country, San Antonio should not be considered one of them. Although the market has its pockets of problems we should thank our lucky stars that we live in San Antonio, Texas.”

Great information from Metrostudy published by The ShowCase USA and you can read the entire article here.

Careers
Best Cities For Jobs In 2008
Matthew Kirdahy, 01.10.08, 12:00 PM ET

The Lone Star State shines brilliantly in a list of the best places to work in the U.S. when some economists peer into their crystal balls for 2008.

Austin, Fort Worth, Houston and San Antonio all rank high on the latest forecast data from Moody’s Economy.com. McAllen, Texas, is expected to have the highest job growth rate, as its leisure and hospitality, educational and health services and commercial construction jobs flourish.

“While the economy is cooling, Texas continues to generate more jobs than the national average,” said Krista Piferrer, deputy press secretary to Gov. Rick Perry. “Unemployment is low in Texas, thanks in large part to a favorable business climate that encourages businesses to expand or relocate to our state.”

In Pictures: Best Cities For Jobs 2008

Even still, Salt Lake City, in all its tech-job abundance, looks like it will remain No. 1 since Forbes.com’s most recent ranking (see last year’s story).

To compile the rankings for the Best Cities For Jobs list forecast, we used five data points, weighted equally: the state’s unemployment rate, job growth, income growth, median household income and cost of living for full-year 2006 (only partial data is available so far for 2007). We measured the largest 100 metropolitan areas, as defined by the U.S. Census Bureau, and obtained the data from Moody’s Economy.com.

The numbers are compiled based on greater metropolitan areas; it’s also important to note that this list doesn’t weigh specifics like job composition or job stability, two significant characteristics that will appeal to any job seeker.

Mark Zandi, chief economist and co-founder of Moody’s Economy.com, acknowledged the housing market depression the company is facing and said the destinations that prevail on this list weren’t as heavily vested in the real estate development boom, which ultimately led to a historic bust.

That’s not to say the highest-ranking cities on this list are completely in the clear, though: “If we have a national recession, if problems intensify nationwide, these economies are going to struggle,” Zandi said.

The top cities on this list also include Atlanta, plentiful in transportation, distribution and financial services careers. Indianapolis has a strong showing in agriculture, too. Omaha, Neb., Warren Buffet’s hometown, offers jobs at opposite ends of the spectrum, in financial services and agriculture as well. The Emerald City–Seattle–brings aerospace and global trade professions to the table.

http://www.forbes.com/2008/01/10/jobs-economy-growth-lead-careers-cx_mk_0110cities_print.html

San Antonio property values hold their fire

The San Antonio real estate market might be described as “the little engine that could,” according to Dwight Hale, broker associate with the Schrader Group.

“We’re not the most spectacular market, but we’re a very steady [one],” he said.

San Antonio’s steady growth has helped reduce its exposure to sharp downturns and made the city “one of the bright spots on the tumbling housing market landscape,” according to Emily Spicer, real estate editor for San Antonio Express News.

As the rest of the nation struggled with a housing market decline, San Antonio real estate values appreciated by 5.5 percent last year, according to DeedQuest.com. Experts predict that property values will continue to appreciate this year by 3 to 4 percent, according to the website.

“So far all the experts that we’ve talked to…have anticipated it remaining a very healthy market, certainly for the next five years and probably beyond that,” Spicer said.

A strong local economy

With a population of approximately 1.3 million people, San Antonio ranks as the seventh most populated city in the country, according to U.S. Census Bureau statistics for 2006. The city enjoys a relatively warm climate, with average high temperatures ranging from 62 degrees in January to 95 degrees Fahrenheit in July.

“You can play golf year-round,” Bob Leonard, chairman of the San Antonio Board of Realtors (SABOR) and RE/MAX Associate, said.

Another geographic advantage is the low risk for natural disasters such as earthquakes, tornadoes and hurricanes.
“It’s a very safe environment,” Leonard said.

San Antonio is a well-known military hub, with four Air Force and Army bases located there. The city is also known for tourist attractions such as the Alamo and the River Walk, and welcomed more than 21 million visitors in 2004, according to SanAntonioRiverWalk.com. The tourism and hospitality industry alone reaps $8.7 billion dollars annually.

San Antonio’s local economy, however, has undergone a dramatic transformation, according to Leonard.

“Our number one economy has gone from military to banking, and [our] number two economy has gone from tourism to medicine,” he said.

Washington Mutual and Citicorp are among the major banks that have established their presence in San Antonio, according to Leonard.

As for medicine, San Antonio is home to the behemoth South Texas Medical Center, which includes 45 medical related institutions. The Medical Center alone has made an annual impact of $13.7 billion on the local economy.

In addition, San Antonio has become the primary location for the military to train its medical personnel and doctors, according to Leonard.

“We have some 11,000 military medical personnel coming here in the next year and a half,” he said.

San Antonio’s economy is also becoming “much more technology-based,” he added.

A number of technology and communications companies, such as AT&T, Rackspace and ClearChannel, have planted facilities in San Antonio. Microsoft has broken ground for the construction of its $550 million data center.

The list of major corporate facilities in San Antonio goes on, from the Toyota Tundra plant in the southern reach of the city to Valero Energy Corporation headquarters. Even the PGA Tour is in the process of constructing a new 36-hole golf course north of downtown San Antonio.

Large companies are most likely attracted to the San Antonio market because of its lower costs; the cost of electricity, for example, is much lower than costs in other parts of the country, according to Michael Lewis, RE/MAX Associate.

San Antonio’s strong local economy has fueled “exceptional” job growth, according to Leonard. The total number of jobs has grown from 760,000 in 2004 to 832,400 in 2007—an increase of almost 10 percent over three years, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data. The unemployment rate has remained low, at an average of 4 percent in 2007.

“I like to say that if you don’t have a job in San Antonio, it’s because you don’t want a job,” Leonard said.

Job growth is expected to maintain its healthy course, and seems to be accelerating faster than anyone anticipated, Leonard said.

“In January we added [some] 5,200 jobs in one month alone,” he said.

San Antonio real estate prices

“I think the most exciting thing about San Antonio [real estate] is its affordability, and that’s in comparison not only to the [rest of] the United States but even within Texas,” Hale said.

The median price for a single-family home was an estimated $145,000 in February, according to MLS statistics generated by the San Antonio Board of Realtors. As of publishing time, the overall median price was estimated at $164,900 by Yahoo! Real Estate.

For the city of Austin, located 80 miles Northeast of San Antonio, the median home price is considerably higher—an estimated at $289,900, according to Yahoo! Real Estate.

Prices have remained stable in spite of a brief bubble that was created in 2006—“a bumper-crop year” for housing inventory, according to Lewis.

When East and West Coast markets started to experience a downturn in 2006, investors flocked to San Antonio and purchased a great deal of new housing. However, investors soon realized that San Antonio is “not a flipping market,” Spicer said.

“The market is not…a good one for greed,” Hale said. “It’s for somebody who wants less risk [and] longer-term gains.”

Although the San Antonio real estate market is still recovering from its bout with excessive speculation two years ago, housing supply is expected to regain its balance later this year.

“We have an excess of speculation inventory on the ground…that [we need] to eradicate but we expect to have that…off the books by August—that’s the last prediction I heard,” Hale said.

Investment opportunities in San Antonio real estate

Property sector growth has historically been concentrated in the northern region of San Antonio, which has “some very beautiful country…[and] where the topography starts to get mountainous,” Leonard said.

However, development is beginning to shift westward as a result of certain geographic limitations. For instance, expansion grew until it reached the city of Boerne, which resisted absorption into the San Antonio market, according to Lewis.

The growth to the north has become so substantial that “the commute for the first time in history of San Antonio is a little bit of an issue,” Leonard said.

Construction costs in the north also tend to be higher, according to Spicer.

Overall, the northern region seems to be emerging as the middle to upper-middle class residential area, with many of the new white-collar employees there, according to Michael Lewis.

The downtown appears to be experiencing a gentrification trend similar to that of many other markets, and a number of developers are building high-priced condominiums and apartments in the downtown area.

“Our downtown has experienced a real renaissance,” Leonard said. “But I think they got a little bit ahead of the game….For example, we don’t have grocery stores downtown yet.”

And because of the large supply of relatively cheap land surrounding the city, “we’ve never had that need for high-density housing,” he said.

Opportunities for investment include high demand areas such as the “old money” neighborhoods of Alamo Heights, Terrell Hills and Rogers Ranch; locations near the South Texas Medical Center, where doctors and nurses are always seeking properties; and regions near military installations, where off-post housing is always in demand, Lewis said in an e-mail.

“A lot of [military] retirees are moving to San Antonio to be close to the installations, hospitals and golf courses,” he said.

But perhaps the most compelling opportunity for investment lies in property geared towards the baby boomer generation, who are just beginning to hit retirement age.

“You follow the baby boomers, and we definitely need more housing here for the empty nesters,” Lewis said.

Empty nesters are attracted to the San Antonio real estate market because of its central location, warm weather, affordable cost of living and multiple medical centers, he said. In light of the oncoming demand for housing, investors might take an interest in town home or retirement community developments.

Many empty nesters are also electing to trade down for smaller, high-quality homes and “one-story homes in particular,” according to Leonard.

“The one-stories are like gold,” he said.

http://www.nuwireinvestor.com/articles/san-antonio-real-estate-investment-51521.aspx

Real Estate
America’s Recession-Proof Cities
Joshua Zumbrun 04.29.08, 8:20 PM ET

Nationally, home prices are falling, unemployment is on the rise and the economy is expected to grow slowly–or even contract–in the first half of the year.

But some cities are doing just fine.

Take Oklahoma City, Okla. With falling unemployment, one of the country’s strongest housing markets, and solid growth in agriculture, energy and manufacturing, it looks best positioned among the nation’s largest metropolitan areas to ride out the current crisis.

San Antonio is right behind. It also features solid employment figures and affordable home prices that continue to rise. Its industries are growing; it can’t hurt that the new AT&T was formed when San Antonio-based SBC Communications swallowed the old AT&T Corp. and BellSouth.

The others holding steady or improving include Austin, Texas; Houston; Charlotte, N.C.; Dallas; San Jose, Calif.; Raleigh, N.C.; Salt Lake City; and Seattle.

Behind The Numbers
To find them, Forbes.com examined the country’s 50 largest metros and looked at several key measures.

We examined unemployment data supplied by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics for the year ending in February 2008 to see which areas are most adding or subtracting jobs. Next, we looked at the BLS data on job growth in non-farm payrolls, through February 2008, for construction, education and health services, financial activities, information, leisure and hospitality, manufacturing, natural resources and mining, professional and business services, trade, transportation and utilities, and the BLS’s catch-all category, “other services.”

We also took into account median home price data from the National Association of Realtors–from the fourth quarter of 2006 to the fourth quarter of 2007–to see which areas posted the largest annual gains. Our data don’t account for the impact of declining sales in the first several months of this year.

Finally, our rankings were adjusted using data from a November 2007 report, “U.S. Metro Economies: The Mortgage Crisis,” by the U.S. Conference of Mayors. It lists each city’s estimated gross metropolitan product growth by projecting how rising foreclosures and falling home prices would affect overall levels of productivity in local economies.

Sunny Southern Skies
Texas cities fared best under these measures. San Antonio, Austin, Houston and Dallas-Fort Worth have benefited from historically lower home prices, which have been affordable to a large segment of the population. The availability of land–and, in some cases, little zoning–helped keep prices in these cities low. Instead of competing for homes, Texans could move to a new subdivision a little farther out.

What’s more, all four boast falling unemployment rates, with Austin dropping from 3.8% to 3.6% and San Antonio from 4.3% to 4%.

Cities that are expected to see growth in non-farm payrolls include Raleigh, which is expected to see 7.4% growth in professional and business services and 6% growth in education and health. In Salt Lake City, where the median home price rose 2.5% and unemployment, at 3.1%, is below the 5.1% national average, growth in education and health services is expected to be 5.5%.

How are you planning on weathering the impending recession? Weigh in. Add your thoughts in the Reader Comments section below.

Some cities have seen increasing home prices but otherwise continue to struggle. Buffalo and Rochester, N.Y., have seen home price growth (from a low base) but still contend with high unemployment–around 6%–and slow-growing or shrinking industries.

And in the San Jose area, the median home sale price is over $830,000. That’s 11% higher than it was in the fourth quarter of 2006, helping to land the area at No. 4 on our list. Problem is, that growth has since cooled, and it remains to be seen whether pricey homes coupled with a 5.3% unemployment rate will cause trouble for homeowners this year.

To be sure, even in the most resilient cities, the mortgage crisis has caused suffering. People everywhere got into bad mortgages. Similarly, even in the most battered cities, the majority of people are employed and making their mortgage payments. The extent of recession or resilience is very much in the eye of the beholder, and this list represents only one of many ways to take a snapshot of economies that are standing tall.

In his statements to Congress’ Joint Economic Committee earlier this month, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke predicted the economy would possibly move into recession in the first half of 2008 but begin to rebound in the second half.

If you’re tired of waiting, these might be the best places to go.

http://www.forbes.com/2008/04/29/cities-recession-places-forbeslife-cx_jz_0429realestate_print.html

04/03/2008

San Antonio Business Journal

San Antonio has been named one of America’s top cities for residential real estate investing for the first quarter of 2008.

That’s at least according to a report by Dallas-based HomeVestors of America Inc., the company better known for its “We Buy Ugly Houses” billboards.

San Antonio ranked seventh on the HomeVestors’ list.

The top market for real estate investing is Dallas, followed by Houston, Atlanta, Fort Worth, St. Louis and Philadelphia.

Denver, Minneapolis and Phoenix round out the top 10.

HomeVestors based the findings on the number of houses bought in each market by the franchise network in the first quarter of 2008. HomeVestors has bought more than 34,000 homes in the United States over the last 11 years.

“We’re off to another ugly year for residential real estate, creating record-setting demand for a trusted national home buyer,” says John Hayes, president and CEO of HomeVestors.

“We generated more than 200,000 opportunities for our franchisees to buy houses in 2007 and we expect even more opportunities this year. Despite changes in the market, real estate investing continues to grow,” he adds.

HomeVestors specializes in buying, rehabbing and selling single-family homes across the nation.

http://www.homevestors.com/inthenews/news.php?id=269