Austin Real Estate market to take a hit

Area real estate market to take a hit, forecaster says
Austin American-Statesman, TX - 3 hours ago

Job growth in Central Texas is expected to slow to 1.1 percent between now and August 2009. New-home construction won’t pick up until the fall of 2009. And don’t look for any major new commercial building until 2010.

That’s the forecast of Mark Dotzour, chief economist and director of research at the Texas A&M Real Estate Center, who spoke to 900 people at the Real Estate Council of Austin’s annual economic forecast event Monday.

Although not all doom and gloom, the forecast differed substantially from Dotzour’s speech last year, when he predicted 3.5 percent job growth for Central Texas this year, ahead of the rate for Texas and the nation.

But as of July, Austin’s job growth was 2.1 percent, sharply lower than a year earlier, when it topped 5 percent. At current levels of job growth, Dotzour expects about 8,500 jobs to be added to the Central Texas economy in the next year.

“The economy here in Austin