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The Houston Economy Continues to Outshine the Nation

The Houston Economy Continues to Outshine the Nation
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It’s a fact that Houston has experienced a cushioned recession at worst. At best, Houstonians didn’t even notice the crash: it never knocked for many here. So it’s little wonder that Houston’s real estate market is the serene eye of the hurricane that became the collapse of the nation’s housing
market.

In May of 2013, The Atlantic’s Derek Thompson wrote a piece lauding Houston’s economy as one of the best-recovered cities in the country. In the piece, Thompson didn’t dance around how impressed he was with Houston’s resilience. “Texas is killing it,” the piece read. It “dominated the recession, crushed the recovery, and in a new analysis of jobs recovered since the downturn, its largest city stands apart as the most powerful job engine in the country — by far.”

And he had the numbers to back it up. Houston was the first in the nation to recover 100% of its job loss, and by 2013 it had not only recovered completely but also added two new jobs for every one knocked out initially. As Thompson puts it: “That’s incredible.”

Since 2013, Houston’s economy has flourished, adding 120k jobs in 2014. But Houston hasn’t just pulled ahead of the pack in just its job market, however. CultureMap Houston just published an article declaring Houston’s housing market to have had the strongest October on record, forecasting an excellent year in 2015. with direct quotes from the chief economist for the NAR (National Association of Realtors), Lawrence Yun.

Nationally, the housing market is improving after the bubble burst, and home prices are expected to rise 4% and number of homes sold should rise 7% in 2015. However, Houston is expected to beat both of those numbers. In fact, as people start to sit up and take notice of Houston, the dark horse coming to be every bit as powerful and important as cities like Los Angeles, Chicago, and New York, Houston has started to become a 24-hour city.

Certainly, after Houston dethroned both New York and Los Angeles as the most diverse city in the United States, we’ve started to feel the gaze. And according to predictions, Downtown is going to see a resident boom in the coming year. In fact, this October beat October of 2013 by 12% when it came to single family homes, and the overall housing market improved 22% from the previous year.

Houston’s market is “tight,” which means there isn’t an excess of homes for sale in Houston, keeping property values from necessitating a seller to sell for less than the value of the home. Too much good news can make an economist skeptical, however, but Amy Bernstein of Bernstein Realty is confident that this isn’t a bubble. “With interest rates remaining low and inventory staying very low, I expect 2015 to be a strong year for the real estate market.” And considering that the economy has been spared from this recession, there’s no reason to doubt her. Everything’s coming up roses, Houston-side.

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