Just the Facts
Housing Boom Stirs Economy
Today, the federal government announced that the unemployment rate dropped in February to 7.7% from 7.9%, and 236,000 new jobs were created last month. The big reason – the national housing boom. There is an estimated one million new home starts in 2013, up from 600,000 in 2012. With this boom comes new construction workers, cabinet makers, kitchen appliance makers, a furniture boom, etc. One new home creates 36 jobs, and with one million new homes – the economy grows.
- ABC Moneywatch, March 8, 2013
Immigrants Buoy the Housing Market
Immigrant homebuyers have bolstered the housing market across the country and will continue to fuel demand at least through 2020, according to a new study. Foreign-born buyers are now accounting for the bulk of growth in homeownership in states with large immigrant populations, especially with the new housing boom this past year. Immigrants who make up 13% of the U.S. population now account for 39% of net growth in homeowners. Immigrants are more likely to buy a home after they become settled and economically stable in the U.S., typically after renting a few years. Hispanics had a 15% homeownership rate in the 1980s. Today, 53% of Hispanic families own their own home. Foreign-born buyers represent 82% of the growth in home sales in California, 65% in New York and 42% in Texas. Most foreign-born homebuyers in Texas are in Houston and Dallas.
- Wall Street Journal. March 7, 2013
U.S Home Prices Rose 9.7% in January
Nationwide home prices shot up by almost 10 % in January. And researchers at Core-Logic Inc. said Tuesday that indicators point to a similar home price gain in February. It was the biggest such increase in seven years in the final days of the housing bubble. Dallas-area home prices were up 8.1% in January, but some northern suburbs showed an increase of more than 15% from one year earlier.
- Dallas Morning News, March 7, 2013
