My apologies for the time away from writing but my family suffered a tremendous loss over the holidays and I am just now getting back to a routine.

This morning's Austin American-Statesman article on the front page of the Business section also made me just want to get out and share.  Angelos Angelou, a highly respected local economist who offers annual outlooks on the Austin economy states that we will be at a 6% unemployment rate within the next two years.  If you look back at the graphs I posted last month on the local unemployment trends, you will see that Austin has already been boasting a relatively low rate of 7% last January and 6.6% this January, while Texas was 8.6% and 8.3% respectively.  We have been leading in this way throughout the downturn.  Angelou continues to say that he is concerned about the types of jobs that are being created in the absence of the Sematech chip consortium that recently located, and the downturn of employment at Dell.

At the same time, other sources are citing a very interesting statistic about the Texas economy since the last census numbers were released.

"Today, one out of 12 Americans lives in Texas — the same proportion that lived in New York City in 1930," wrote Michael Barone recently in the Wall Street Journal.

This is amazing to me.  Already the hot-bed of creativity, I think Austin will only continue to attract high end skill to its labor market as entrepreneurs and small businesses continue to relocate for our talent, universities, and natural settings.  When a large organization like Dell sheds highly talented individuals like they have been, many continue to congregate and create based on that experience.  The next two or three years will see the product of this entrepreneurial energy and another round of buy-outs will occur.  It's all good.

Already, from my perspective I am seeing this optimism reflect in healthy activity in the residential real estate market.  An improving economy puts upward pressure on mortgage rates and people who feel more confident about their own employment situation are beginning to make buying decisions.  That confidence will continue to grow through the spring season, and I see us having a more normal seasonal curve throughout the year.  With the hangover of the home buyer tax credit behind us we should also see a more normal mix of homes being sold, across all price ranges.  Homes under $200,000 which normally make up 50% of sold homes but fell to under 40% post tax credit deadline, will make a come back.  The weekly Alamo Title report from this week shows that pendings compared to last year are only down 2.35% ( http://www.alamotitle-austin.com/mls_statistics.php).  That is a good indication.