Why Do You Invest in Austin? (Testimonial for BP!)

[Lauren Hogan]

BiggerPockets! I work at BP and I'm working on building a landing page for Austin. Would anyone be willing to share why you choose to invest in this city? What makes it so wonderful?

[Beau Fannon]

TL:DR answer: I live here, I love it here, and it's the most fundamentally sound region in America.

Long answer, Austin is the most economically sound city in America.  Let's look at major headwinds on national level and compare them to the local impact here. Take China trade for instance. China trade has been in the dumps for a year. Locally we lost 80% of of our onboarding and offboarding international cargo at the airport. That cost Austin a lot of jobs. But, it didn't even register as a blip in our total airport traffic or local job market.  Austin is strong.

Let's look at our job market.  Austin has an incredibly diverse job base. No single job category, as tracked by the Federal Reserve, accounts for more than 18% of our total job base.  It would take another global economic crisis to do substantial damage to our local economy.

Professional and Business Services 18%
Trade transportation and utility 18%
Government 16%
Leisure and Hospitality 12%
Health and Education Services 11%
Construction and Mining 6%
Financial Activities 6%
Manufacturing 6%
Other Services 4%
Information including media 4%

Let's look at my proprietary U-Haul index. The only other town that rivals Austin as a prime destination for relocation is Nashville.  Most of the other potential destinations are becoming economically unsound. My U-Haul index shows this. We have so many U-hauls in town that the company is practically giving them away to people who want to drive them elsewhere.

Sure, someone can buy a cash flowing property in an economically unsound city and make $200 a month off of it for 5 years but they'll end up selling it for the same price they bought it for.  Here in Austin, it's an appreciation game.  Where else can you generate 4,5,6,or maybe even 7% appreciation on your investment annually?  Where else can you get that appreciation and only have to pay 1.03X to 1.1X of the national house price median to do so? 

Opportunities. Austin is full of opportunities. Nearly every street has an opportunity for the right person.