As recently reported in the Austin American Statesman, Angelos Angelou, a local economist, predicts that Austin will add an additional 29,000 jobs in 2014. That amounts to 2,415 a month, or on a daily basis, over 79 jobs a day! He further predicts that our unemployment rate, presently around 5% will job to about 4.8%. That means that just about anyone looking for a job can get one. For what is worth, the Texas Workforce Commission states that through November, the Austin job market grew 21,700 and that Angelou had predicted that Austin would see 29,000 additional jobs in 2013. Adding the monthly average of 2,315 jobs to 21,700 you end up with a projected new job figure of 24,115. Yes he missed the mark some, but that figure is still darn good! The rest of the USA is envious I’m sure.
Housing is still tight making this a great time to own Austin area real estate. In going over the figures for our new leases written in 2013, I find that the rents were up 7%. A remarkable figure is that we wrote “exactly” the same number of leases last year as we did this year.
So Happy New Year Y’all!