Austin Texas Dodged the Housing Crisis Bullet

Signs of a Tough Housing Market

Its hard to pick up a newspaper without seeing statistics about another town or city in the U.S. which has been hard hit by the collapse of the housing market over the past 4 years. Cities like Phoenix, where neighborhoods are in complete disarray with often more vacant or abandoned property than occupied; or Las Vegas, a city which, despite its world famous gambling industry income, a recent study ranked as the worst economy in the United States.

It turns out that, more that any other, one city which has come through the recent turmoil mostly unscathed is Austin, Texas. According to the report Austin has the strongest economy of all cities in the U.S. due in large part to its highly educated population.

Cities caught up in the crisis,  it turns out, had much more of their economic growth tied to the real estate market, whereas cities with weathered the storm deliver real products with a strong work force both blue collar and white collar.