Hip bars, cool restaurants, close to a beach, affordability, young & beautiful population.
Sure these are all things that attract newly graduated college students. But what really gets them flooding into any metropolitan area is the prospect for work. College grads go where the jobs are. They have no choice -- those college loans have to be paid off somehow!
While the rest of the country is bleeding jobs, the D.C. area is adding them. According to a report from Reuters, college graduates increasingly see the Washington DC area as a very attractive place to live and work:
"D.C. is the only place where we can point to
that is actually adding jobs right now, and we
also know that the government is hiring thousands
of people to oversee both the (economic) stimulus
package and all the associated projects," said
Marisa Di Natale, Senior Economist for Moody’s
Economy.com.
The article discusses how many graduates are "shunning Wall Street for Washington." When I graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 1995, most of my friends (many of them Wharton students) went up to New York City to start their careers. I came down to D.C. for law school, practiced law, stuck around, got married, and got into real estate. At the time, my path was the anomaly.
Apparently no more!
Jobs = College Grads = Growth of Economy = Housing Market Recovery
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