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College Station and Bryan Texas Economic Update
By Trevor | July 3, 2008
From the Texas A&M Real Estate Center….
The Bryan-College Station market recently experienced year-over-year job growth in excess of 3 percent for the first time in several years, according to Amarillo-based economist Karr Ingham. April’s job expansion and an improvement in the unemployment rate were among the positive signs for the local economy. The employment rate was 3.1 percent in April, compared with a statewide rate of 4.1 percent for that month, according to the U.S. Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics. “The [Bryan-College Station] economy is beginning to move more sideways than up, and the margin of improvement compared to the prior year is narrowing,” Ingham said. “Both very simply suggest a slowdown in the economy.” Ingham assigned Bryan-College Station an index rating of 123.8 - up slightly from 123.7 in March 2008. The index, which Ingham started in 2000 with a baseline of 100, serves to measure the area’s economic performance against the baseline period. Consumer spending declined 1.2 percent compared with April 2007, dipping from $128.7 million in 2007, according to the economic indicators. Year-over-year retail spending was 5.6 percent higher in 2008 than in the first four months of 2007. Hotel-motel tax receipts, generated by visitors to area hotels, grew 5.8 percent in April from the same period in 2007, to $1 million. April auto sales totaled $31.7 million, 46 percent, over April 2007, and increased 17.4 percent for the first four months of 2008 compared with the same period in 2007. Ingham said month-to-month numbers for home construction were “all over the place” in April. Single-housing permits were flat from April 2007 at 123 but decreased 3.6 percent from the first four months of 2007. But the number of home sales grew 10 percent from April 2007 to 253 in April 2008, while year-over-year sales declined 0.1 percent. Average home prices were down more than $40,000 from April 2007, a 16.5 percent decrease, though year-over-year numbers showed only a 4.9 percent decrease.
[Bryan-College Station Eagle]
Topics: College Station Real Estate |
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