Texas Economy - August 2016

[Shital Thakkar]

Hi,

Let me share data from Texas A&M Real Estate Center about Texas Economy released in Aug 2016

What is your opinion about future of real estate based on these numbers..?

• New Job created = 7200
• GDP Growth for 1st quarter = 0.2%, slower than national avg and slowest since 4th quester of 2009.
• Texas Leading Index = Down
• Texas Business Cycle Index = Decelerate
• DFW / Houston housing demand weaken month-over-month after peak in February
• Austin / San Antonio housing demand increasing.
• Housing sale = Increase 1.8% annually, monthly decline since april.
• Building permit = Houston (3,386) and Dallas-Fort Worth (3,091) still led the nation in the number of single-family permits issued

https://www.recenter.tamu.edu/articles/technical-r...

[Jeff Wells]

A lot of this has to do with the oil downturn.  There is always an accordion effect, so the overall Texas economy is really feeling the effects now from the oil downturn of the past few years.  Depending on how bearish or bullish you feel about oil over the next 5 years, I think that will determine whether Texas continues to see large, dramatic growth, or slower, consistent growth.  Each city in Texas has other economic drivers (For example, San Antonio = military, biomed, tourism, etc) that drive our economies, however Houston is very oil-centric, so we are definitely exercising caution there.