Notes From Texas Recon Newsletter

[Jim Cummings]

Some Notes on Texas from the latest issue of Texas RECON (Texas Real Estate Center) Newsletter.

Far West Texas continued to feel the impact of the oil downtown in March as apartment rents decreased. Midland and Odessa are not only the communities with the largest rent drops in the nation but also the only communities with annual drops larger than 2.5 percent.

Texas sees ninth-smallest unemployment claims jump from COVID-19. Texas had 313,832 unemployment initial insurance claims the week of March 30, 2020, a 2296.94 percent increase from 13,093 the week of April 1, 2019.

That is the ninth-smallest annual unemployment insurance claims increase nationally, according to a WalletHub study.

The state had a 2737.66 percent increase in claims from the first week of the year, when there were 12,367 claims.

Oregon had the smallest increase in unemployment initial insurance claims since April 2019 with a 1167.82 percent jump. Georgia had the largest with an 8262.24 percent increase.

In the week of March 23, 267,000 Texans filed for unemployment benefits, according to the Texas Workforce Commission. Nationally, a record 6.65 million people filed first-time jobless claims that week.