Texas Property Insider- Austin Real Estate and Texas Coastal Real Estate Blog

Welcome to Texas Property Insider. The purpose of this blog is to provide accurate and helpful information about market trends and issues important to property owners in Central Texas and on the Texas Coast. You hear a lot of talk out there. You see the statistics, read the stories in the newspaper and you see practitioners regurgitate those same stories and statistics. There is more information available then ever before. But why is it, even after all of the stories and pundits have had their say, you still feel you can’t grasp what’s really happening in the real estate market?


There is a lot more to it than simple statistics and market info. These numbers are helpful and vitally important, but if taken at face value they can be misleading, even deceiving. As Mark Twain once said, “There are lies, damned lies and then there are statistics.” I created this blog to pull back the curtain on Texas real estate, interpret the market information and present it to you in a format that is both pithy and easy to digest.

Thursday, February 18, 2010

Unemployment at 3%? It all depends on how you slice it...

There is an interesting post on the Matrix blog that looks at the rate of unemployment across income levels.



As you might expect, unemployment is highest among the lowest earners. What might be surprising is how low the level of unemployment is at the upper income levels.

As Jonathan observes in his post, it is easy to think of measures like the unemployment rate as a single measure, an "across the board phenomenon." As usual though, things tend to get more interesting and useful when you drill-down to the details.

We hear the overall unemployment number tossed around all the time in the media. There are so many ways that one can slice and dice it, but as a luxury agent income is a useful measure and it is probably interesting to know that unemployment is so low at the upper income levels.

Also, with talks of impending levels of high inflation and an increase in the capitol gains tax we could see quite a surge in real estate investment from wealthy investors. This could range from your typical income producing properties to a luxury home or second home. We also anticipate a jump in commercial property and raw land.

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