Believe it or not the Brookings Institute rates Dallas as one of the top 10 most resilient cities in the nation. Here are the stats: Employment from peak to end of 1Q2010, down 4.5%; Change in unemployment rate Mar 2007 – Mar 2010, up 4.2%; Change in Gross Metropolitan Product, thru 1Q2010, up 1.8%; Change in real housing price index (HPI), 2007 – 2010: down 4.7%.
Although Dallas has an unemployment rate of 8.3%, we have seen positive job growth for the last two quarters.
The percentage of delinquent home mortgages in Texas dropped to under 9% from 10.3% at the end of 2009. While still higher than the 7.92% as of the same time last year, it is below the nationwide average of 10.06%–which rose during the first quarter. For the same period, 2.08% of Texas home loans were in foreclosure versus 4.63% nationwide. The president of the Texas Mortgage Bankers Association was quoted in the Dallas Morning News saying “…we have absolutely hit bottom and are starting to come out of this.”
Watch out Plano residents – to assist in paying down outstanding and upaid bonds, Plano School District trustees are proposing a tax rate increase of 2.5 cents, to $1.35 per $100 assessed value. This is to make up for the 6% Plano property values drop since last year. Trustees are to discuss this tax increase June 1. Some satisfaction for the Plano residents is that the Plano ISD’s tax rate is one of the lowest in Collin County.
