The Texas economy gained steam in the third quarter as recent data from the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas show the state has started moving past the slump in oil prices.
Texas’s job growth rate tripled during the three-month period to a 2.6 percent pace. It passed the national rate in the third quarter for the first time since the end of 2014, according to the Dallas Fed. After adjusting earlier jobs data for the energy industry, researchers showed the sector was still cutting employees but at a slower pace.
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Most of the major cities in Texas saw upticks in new jobs during the third quarter
“The data that we’re looking at indicates that we might be seeing the beginning of the end of the Texas slump,” Dallas Fed Economist Amy Jordansaid in a video posted Nov. 4.
Most of the major cities in Texas saw upticks in new jobs during the quarter — even Houston, which has been hurt more than others from the drop in oil prices that began in 2014.
The Dallas Fed noted home prices in Texas are surging at a faster pace than the rest of the U.S. The median price for a single-family home increased 6.1 percent in September from one year prior, a faster clip than the 4.2 percent gain nationally. Oi
But there are concerns about affordability and whether new jobs will keep up with the boom in home prices. According to the Texas A&M Real Estate Center, Dallas had the steepest decline in affordable homes from 2011 through the middle of this year. A little more than 50 percent of the homes sold in the area were considered affordable for median-income families during the second quarter, a slide of almost 18 percentage points. The job cuts are well noticed in the corporate housing business but towards near the end of 2016 "we can clearly see a raise in demand from the energy sector which was down all year long " says HCH Houston corpoate housing CEO.
