Houston, Dallas-Fort Worth and Austin made the top 20 list of cities in Policom’s 2010 Economic Strength Rankings report.  The report, which is published annually and uses data going back to 1989, focuses on long-term trends inside of 366 different Metropolitan Statistical Areas.  Volatility is a main consideration in terms of how the areas behave over time.

• Houston-Sugar Land-Baytown ranked 4^th
• Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington ranked 10^th
• Austin-Round Rock-San Marcos ranked 12^th

The report can be found here

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A report just out by Newgeography.com shows that Texas has again held top spots for job growth.

The report, which pulls monthly employment data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics on metropolitan statistical areas, comes from 10 years of three month rolling averages from 1999 to 2010.

Texas benefits from a consistently lower cost of living, a favorable climate for entrepreneurship and diverse industry opportunities.  Energy has naturally also been a helpful buffer for the Lone Star State.

The Texas cities include:

1. Austin-Round Rock-San Marcos
2. San Antonio-New Braunfels
3. Houston-Sugar Land-Baytown
4. Dallas-Plano-Irving
5. Fort Worth-Arlington

Hotel Foreclosures continue

The Dallas Morning News has reported that Dallas/Fort Worth area hotels are seeing higher numbers of distressed properties being sent into foreclosure this year.   Data from Foreclosure Listing Service shows that this year has already eclipsed 2009 in terms of foreclosed hotels operating in the Dallas/Fort Worth area.

Hotel properties going into foreclosure this year are touching both ends of the spectrum – from high end hotels holding up to $183 million in debt to small motels with up to $1 million in debt.  With occupancy around 45%, the U.S. hotel industry has not seen times this bad since the 1930′s.

• 2008 – 18 foreclosures
• 2009 – 41 foreclosures
• Q1 of 2010 – 43 foreclosures

George Roddy with Foreclosure Listing Service says that the Dallas/Fort Worth hotel market was “overbuilt and overfinanced”.  The hotel industry currently has a higher proportion of distressed properties than any other real estate asset class nationwide.