While nationally home prices are falling and there is so much gloom and doom in the news about the housing market, the economy, unemployment and the list goes on.... Oklahoma Is Doing Fine..... just like the song "Oklahoma".

According to Forbes magazine article of April '08 "Take Oklahoma City, Okla. With falling unemployment, one of the country's strongest housing markets, and solid growth in agriculture, energy and manufacturing, it looks best positioned among the nation's largest metropolitan areas to ride out the current crisis." Click on the link to view article and see the top 10 cities.

1. Oklahoma City, Okla.

Median home price: +8.2%, Unemployment: 3.5% (from 4.7% in February 2007)

Key growth: Leisure and hospitality, +6%; construction +11.5% from 2007

Did someone say something about a recession? With falling unemployment, one of the strongest housing markets in the country, and strong growth in agriculture, energy and manufacturing, Oklahoma City might not have received the recession memo, and it looks best positioned of the nation's metropolitan areas to ride out the current crisis. Booming valuations of Oklahoma City's largest companies, like Devon Energy and Chesapeake Energy, suggest the energy sector is the right place to be.

From NewsOK: "•Oklahoma's unemployment rate in February was 3.1 percent. Nationally, it was 4.8 percent.

•Oklahoma home values increased by 4.24 percent in 2007. Nationally, the median home price dropped 1.4 percent that year.

•Oklahoma City is 19th out of the 100 largest metropolitan areas on the Forbes 2008 Best Cities for Jobs list.

•Oklahoma was fourth in 2007 for business startups, according to the Kauffman Index of Entrepreneurial Activity.

The same index has Oklahoma fourth out of 40 real estate markets for corporate expansion or relocation and sixth among the country's best performing markets in terms of retail vacancy, rental rates and development.

RealtyTrac reported in February that the number of foreclosure filings in Oklahoma last year - 13,594 - was down 12.78 percent compared with 2006. The national foreclosure rate increased 80 percent from 2006.

Nobody says Oklahoma is completely in the clear. But the state is in a better position than most."

I for one am glad I am in Oklahoma!!

Jean Drysdale

 http://www.jeandrysdale.com