A recent email distributed by Jim Scuttles of First American Title is a nice follow up to our last post. It further illustrates Houston as a city of great opportunity. Always feel free to comment and let us know your thoughts on our posts.
Texas Economy
The Texas economy often behaves independent of the rest of the country, just as it once was a separate nation. Its economy is larger than many small countries and is certainly faring better than most other states. Forbes magazine recently listed the top ten cities easing out of the recession. The top five places were Texas cities except for Washington D.C. Austin tied with D.C. for first place, quickly followed by Dallas, Houston and San Antonio. Unlike many other states, Texas has state laws that prohibit consumers from using home-equity lines of credit to increase borrowing to more than 80 percent of the value of their homes.
Overall, the Texas unemployment rate continues to fare better than the rest of the nation. While 8.2% still seems high, many states would be happy with that rate. In particular, California at 12.5% and Michigan at 14.1% would trade numbers with Texas.
Cities in Texas didn’t see the same run-up in home prices and rampant speculation that led to the spectacular bubble burst elsewhere in the country. And our mortgage delinquency rate is 5.78 percent compared with 8.78 percent nationwide.
Houston is predicted to have a 7.03% increase in jobs in the next three years. Also in March, the U.S. Census Bureau announced that Houston ranks second among the nation’s top twenty-five cities in annual population growth. The Houston metro area population is expected to increase 6.8 percent to 6.2M in the next five years.
Houston – Global Player
Houston doesn’t often get the respect in the business community it deserves. How many of the world’s business leaders are aware that Houston ranks 2nd among U.S. cities behind New York, with a total of 25 Fortune 500 company headquarters located here? In comparison, Dallas has fourteen and Atlanta and Chicago have nine each. Houston also has seven companies on the Fortune 100 Fastest Growing Companies in 2009, as well as eleven companies on Fortune’s Best Companies to Work For (February 2010). Some of these major corporations include:
- ConocoPhillips – 6th on the Fortune list
- Marathon Oil Corp
- Sysco Corp
- Enterprise GP Holdings LP
- Waste Management
- Group 1 Automotive
Other oil and gas related companies include, Halliburton, National Oilwell Varco, KBR, Baker Hughes, Anadarko Petroleum, Kinder Morgan and Cameron.
And soon Houston will be home to one of the world’s largest companies, ExxonMobil. Exxon and Wal-Mart have traded the number one spot on the Fortune 500 in the last few years. Work has already begun on ExxonMobil’s new headquarters north of Houston. Currently, headquarters are located in Irving, although more employees are located in various offices around Houston. The completion date for the new complex has not been announced. It is located just south of The Woodlands where Interstate 45 and the Hardy Toll road intersect.
Although Houston is well-known for being the energy capital of the world it is rapidly becoming economically diverse. Other important industries include medical/biomedical technology, global trade, aeronautics, plastics manufacturing, electronics, computers, software design and integrated power.
Sources: Houston Business Journal, Forbes magazine, www.slate.com and Colliers International
