Tuesday, September 16, 2008 - 5:00 PM

Austin economy ranks 4th on Milken/Greenstreet list

Even in a tougher economy Austin is still outperforming many other areas of the country in job creation and other economic markers.

The Austin-Round Rock region ranks 4th among the country's largest metropolitan areas on the Milken Institute and Greenstreet Real Estate Partners' 2008 Best Performing Cities list. That's a dramatic improvement from Austin's 20th place ranking on last year's list. The list ranks cities according to a series of matrices such as job creation and salary and technology growth.

Provo-Orem, Utah; Raleigh-Cary, N.C.; and Salt Lake City, Utah, were the top ranked cities on the list, in that order.

Among other Texas metro areas, the McAllen-Edinburgh-Mission region ranked No. 7 on the list followed by Killeen-Temple-Fort Hood at No. 13, San Antonio at No. 15, Houston at No. 16, and Dallas at No. 23. To see the full rankings, click here. That's not to say we are immune to the real estate downturn as our foreclosures continue to climb, but relatively speaking the Austin metro area is still fairly healthy in comparison to several other markets in the survey.

I also noticed the Midland-Odessa area in west Texas, where a HUGE chunk of our nation's oil deposits are, is experiencing a re-birth of it's economy (place cursor over Texas and see where the #1 "Top 5 Small Metro Areas" is)! Needless to say, with a barrel of oil well exceeding $100/barrel, this area is booming! I was out there several weeks ago visitng my sister and staying at her newly constructed home - a home that costs her $125/sf to build, that 5 years ago could have been built for around $95/sf!!