Austin's Real Estate and Economic Recovery

Austin Business Journal:

Members of the Laborers’ International Union of North America are making a stop in Austin as part of a 3,300-mile, 10-city tour to protest large homebuilders’ roles in the U.S. Housing market crash.

LIUNA officials said the “Build America so America Works” RV tour aims to highlight the role that Pulte Homes and groups like Centex, KB Home and Lennar played in the collapse and loss of construction jobs by offering subprime and exotic mortgages.

In Austin, the group will stop at the Austin Centex office on Dec. 7 to hold a rally. It will hold a community discussion on homebuilding corporations and the U.S. housing market at 5 p.m. that day at the Hilton Garden Inn at 500 N. I-35.

http://austin.bizjournals.com/austin/stories/2009/11/30/daily32.html?sur...

Not enough roomDell’s decision to hold event in Vegas proves Austin must add hotel rooms, finish projects
Austin Business Journal - by Jacob Dirr ABJ Staff

What happens in Vegas doesn’t happen in Austin.

The city recently missed out on about $5.3 million dollars in economic impact after Dell Inc. moved its convention from Austin, where it had been held annually, to Las Vegas, officials said.

This year, Dell (Nasdaq: DELL) expanded its usual 2,000-person North American convention to include its European and Asian operations, increasing attendance to about 4,000 people.

Despite various plans and initiatives under way to bolster downtown Austin’s place as a preferred destination, a critical piece of the puzzle — another 800- to 1,200-room hotel — remains obscured.

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http://austin.bizjournals.com/austin/stories/2009/11/16/story1.html

Foreclosure postings in the Austin metro area topped 14,000 for the year as postings are in for the year’s last auction, according to Addison-based Foreclosure Listing Service Inc.

“This is the highest that I have seen since Foreclosure Listing Service began tracking foreclosure activity here in 2001, and it very well could be the highest ever,” said George Roddy Sr., president of Foreclosure Listing Service.

The 14,000 postings represented a 57 percent increase compared with last year’s 9,000 postings, which was a record at the time.

For the upcoming December auction, 1,215 Austin-area properties have foreclosure postings, the 11th month in a row that monthly posting activity has topped 1,000, Roddy said.

In Travis County, foreclosure postings topped 7,000 for the year, a 58 percent increase compared with last year. For the fourth quarter, Travis County saw a 56 percent increase in postings, from 1,321 last year to 2,055 this yer.

Williamson County foreclosure postings this year also rose, to 4,500, a 61 percent increase from the 2,800 postings last year. In the fourth quarter, the county had about 1,400 postings, up 72 percent compared with the same quarter last year.

Postings in Hays County topped 1,400, a 55 percent increase compared with 951 postings last year. And in the last quarter of the year, the county saw about 400 postings, a 66 percent increase compared with the same quarter in 2008.

Bastrop County had about 800 postings for the year, up 39 percent from last year’s 627 postings. In the fourth quarter, the county had a 28 percent increase in postings, from 180 in the same quarter last year to 230 this year.

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