Expert says Central Texas homes market

will remain robust this year

Economic consultant Angelou sees 'seller's market'

continuing.

By Kirk Ladendorf
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Thursday, January 25, 2007

Since it emerged from its high-tech slump three years ago, Austin has steadily added jobs, people and stores, and economist Angelos Angelou expects all those factors will keep growing over the next two years.

Job growth will remain strong — averaging 3.3 percent — and it will fuel population growth, which will spur continued strong demand for housing and retail space.

"Austin is going to become one of the hottest real estate markets in the United States," Angelou told business people at the Austin Convention Center for his 21st annual economic forecast.

Angelou is a leading economic development consultant and former head of economic development for the Greater Austin Chamber of Commerce. "In my view, this is going to remain a seller's market for some time to come. We will continue to defy what is happening at the national level," where sales have dropped and home prices have slumped in formerly booming areas along the East and West coasts.

It all starts with new jobs. Angelou forecasts that the five-county Austin metropolitan area will add 24,400 jobs in 2007 and 26,100 in 2008, compared with job growth of 22,400 last year. Last year's job growth rate of 3.2 percent was tied with Dallas for the highest among the state's major urban areas and was slightly ahead of the statewide average of 2.9 percent.

The metro area edged above 1.5 million residents for the first time in late 2006, Angelou said, and by the end of 2008, it will be close to 1.6 million. That compares with a metro area population of 565,000 people in the mid-1980s, when Angelou began making local forecasts.