It may not be the most widespread measure of housing prices, but if you want to follow a powerful driver, look at rents.

Specifically, it’s the rents Americans pay on condos, apartments or houses that are about the same size, and share the same neighborhood as your ranch or colonial, that in the end determine what your house is worth.

"If you look at the trend in rents to see where housing prices are headed, you’re looking at the right measure," says Yale economist Robert Shiller.

In recent reports, Deutsche Bank demonstrates how steady or even falling rents have pulled down housing prices, to the point where in many markets it costs about the same amount to own as to lease. That’s a golden mean that America hasn’t seen in almost a decade. The DB research also offers convincing evidence that the wrenching adjustment in housing prices is finished for much of the nation, with a bit more pain to come in selected areas.

Before we get to the numbers, let’s examine why rents exercise a kind of gravitational pull over home prices.

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During the past three years, home prices grew in the beer-guzzling heartland and fell in the wine-sipping coastal states.

If you’re a beef-eating, beer-guzzling, pick-up driving resident of heartland America, there’s a good chance you escaped the housing bust. But pesto-chomping, chardonnay-sipping, hybrid-driving city-slickers were probably out of luck.

Over the past three years, 23 states recorded home price gains in the majority of their metro areas, according to analytics firm Fiserv. And where were most of those gainers? In much of the so-called heartland: the South, the Plains and most of the non-coastal West.

Meanwhile, the 16 states that posted declines were led by much of New England and the Northeast, plus California, Florida, Nevada and Arizona.

Most telling, however, was that the 12 remaining states — those that posted mixed results in their metro areas — were found in every region of America.

And even in the mixed results states, such as New York, the bust hit "blue" metro areas, like New York City and Long Island (both down 21.7%), and spared "red" upstate cities. Buffalo prices grew 8.3%, Syracuse climbed 8.4%, Utica gained 10.4%, and Binghamton was up 17.7%.

The states where metro markets rose generally share two characteristics, according to Mark Fleming, chief economist for First American CoreLogic: low prices and open space.

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Founded by Spanish missionaries in the early 1700s, San Antonio, Texas is now the seventh largest city in the United States and the fastest growing region of the state. It is located halfway between the nation’s east and west coasts and near other major Texan cities such as Austin, Houston and Corpus Christi.

Considered a gateway of foreign trade, San Antonio is recognized by Business Facilities magazine as one of the five major logistical locations in the country for warehousing and distribution. It benefits from its proximity to Mexico and has reaped the economic rewards of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). Over half of the goods moving in and out of Mexico pass through the city of San Antonio and this trade is expected to grow. Plus, thirty percent of the city’s retail market demand comes from shoppers living in Mexico.

San Antonio was the nation’s second fastest growing major city from 1990 to 2000 according to the US Census Bureau. During that decade, the city grew 14.5 percent to a population of 1,144,646. The reported 2007 population estimate is 1,259,735 indicating a growth rate of 1.4 percent per year over the past seven years.

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Bizjournals recently analyzed private-sector employment patterns in America’s major metropolitan areas using data from the past five years. Using a nine-part formula, with data compiled since 2003 by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, they analyzed employment trends in the nation’s 100 largest labor markets.

According to the report, these are the top 10 labor markets in the country:

1. Houston, TX
2. Austin, TX
3. Dallas-Fort Worth, TX
4. Raleigh, N.C.
5. Seattle, WA
6. San Antonio, TX
7. Charlotte, NC
8. Oklahoma City, OK
9. Durham, N.C.
10. Salt Lake City, UT

It’s interesting to note that Texas has four of the hottest jobs markets in the country.

And once again, last place belongs to Detroit which has ranked as the coldest job market in America for the past two years. The biggest problem remains Detroit’s heavy reliance on domestic automakers, resulting in a loss of 30,800 jobs since mid-2007.

People.

The U.S. Census indicates that our population is increasing by approximately three million people each year. All those people will need a place to live, work and shop. So there will continue to be demand for housing and that growth will continue to provide opportunities for real estate investors.

The primary factor driving real estate appreciation is migration. When you have more people moving into an area than those moving out (or passing away), you drive up demand which will ultimately increase home values.

But what drives migration?

Jobs! The largest determinant of migration is job growth. People go where the jobs are, and retailers go where the people are.
Demand for housing will continue, the question is where?

Even though U.S. job growth has been down recently, Norada’s goal is to find where job growth is up. So we begin by identifying markets with solid job growth and narrow our focus to neighborhoods that provide solid real estate investment opportunities.

Hurricane Katrina was our nation’s worst natural disaster – referred to as the “100 Year Storm”.  It destroyed 64,000 homes and 47,000 rental units.  But it also may have provided us with one of the greatest investment opportunities of our lifetime.

Prior to hurricane Katrina, the Mississippi Gulf Coast real estate market was showing significant strength due to the expanding casino market, expanding defense industry and baby-boomers looking for more affordable Gulf Coast living.  In many respects it offered people a similar but more affordable lifestyle than Florida, at a substantially lower cost.

Following the devastation of Katrina, many construction firms concentrated on the areas needing immediate clean up and repair work.  The Governor of Mississippi then announced that there was an urgent need for 100,000 new affordable homes to be built within the following 12 months.  But the true rebuilding of single family homes in the area has only recently commenced.  There were over 100,000 people living in FEMA trailers.  Today 30,000 of those people still live in trailers, and another 40,000 families are living with friends and family due to the severe housing shortage.

Other factors contributing to the demand for housing include the job growth from larger employers such as the Kessler Air Force Base, the Stennis Space Center expansion, the growing aerospace corridor, shipbuilding, growing international trade zones, and the overall Mississippi business climate.

Additionally, Mississippi changed its gaming laws to allow casinos to build 800 feet onshore.  Many of the local builders were given lucrative construction contracts to repair and rebuild casinos.  Contractors were hired to work around the clock to meet tight deadlines on getting the casinos up and running.  Today the Mississippi gulf coast is the second largest gaming destination in the USA next to Las Vegas.

Recent economic studies show that the Gulf Coast area is recovering.  Statewide, gross state product and employment have surpassed pre-Katrina levels and a reconstruction boom is anticipated for the next five years.  Post Katrina employment growth in the state more than offset jobs that were lost due to Katrina.  Retail sales in the twelve months after Katrina are 19% above pre-storm levels, indicating further strengthening in the economy.

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The 2007 annual ranking of the nation’s leading tourism destinations compares domestic and international tourism spending, tourism job creation, and the degree to which each city’s economic vitality is dependent upon visitors. The results show that a significant gain in international visitors propelled New York City to the top spot in 2007.

The U.S. City Tourism Impact, recently released by Global Insight, combines domestic and international travel volumes and spending data from D.K. Shifflet & Associates, as well as the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Office of Travel and Tourism Industries with metropolitan area economic data and models from Global Insight to rank the most popular tourist destinations in the U.S.

As the housing market continues to decline in areas around the country, especially Florida and California, and with the threat of a recession looming like a dark cloud overhead, Texas’ economy and housing market remains strong.

According to numbers released by the U.S. Census Bureau, eight out of the 10 fastest-growing metropolitan areas in the U.S. are in the South, and the South also accounted for more than half of the 50 fastest growing regions.

Dr. James Gaines, a research economist at the Real Estate Center at Texas A&M University said, “From 2000 to 2007, 3 million people moved to Texas, a 14.6 percent jump in the population, making Texas the fastest growing state in the country.”

“In the next 25 years we’ll add another 13.6 million people, that’s the equivalent of another Metroplex, metropolitan Houston and metropolitan San Antonio with enough left over to add another Corpus Christi.”, he said.

Dallas/Fort Worth drew in more people than any other metropolitan area in 2007.  The population there increased by 162,250 between July 1, 2006, and July 1, 2007, according to a new U.S. Census Bureau report.  Houston, Atlanta, and Phoenix also witnessed a swell by more than 100,000 people each.

With its affordable housing, low cost of living and cost of doing business, rising employment opportunities and attractive lifestyle, more people than ever before are being drawn to Dallas.  Read more »