Top 30 Residential New Construction Cities (click to enlarge):

Austin/Round Rock hold the #12 spot for New Construction based on single and multi-family building permits.

4 of the top 30 markets show negative job growth and they all happen to sit on the southwest and southeast coasts (Los Angeles, Riverside/San Bernardino, Miami and Tampa) where the media began picking up news of economic trouble.  They saw a great deal of new construction but a -12% job growth.  Again, these are the areas that saw appreciation at 200-2000% per year compared to Austin’s steady and slow appreciation and strong, positive job growth..  That’s a volatile market compared to a steady market.  Of course, we are hurting on a minor scale because of the media attention to the housing sector, but this is another great example of how Austin isn’t suffering like the cities the media keeps covering.

The E-P ratio is the number of jobs divided by the number of permits.  A number less than 1.0 is generally a sign of an unhealthy market, Austin’s E-P ration is 1.2.

Here’s another look at Austin’s economic health.  I’ve been hearing and reading the media attacking builders nationwide for causing our economic downturn.  Although builders should seriously take a break on cities like Los Angeles and Miami, Austin’s builders seem to be properly managing inventory and new starts.  Los Angeles (and other east and west coast markets) saw a boom in the housing market much earlier than we did here in Austin.  To fill the gap, new builders sprang up and moved into the areas.  Now they need to find work in other sectors or cities.  Austin saw a boom in new builders and new construction only a year or two ago when we had our largest seller’s market this decade in 2006.  The job sector saw much less boom as well so it is much easier to stabilize as our market stabilizes as well.

Expect to see new construction continuing as Austin continues to see job and population growth, as well as the wealth of the population growing.