Of the 105 largest U.S. metros, Forbes says Austin is the #1 Best Buy City with great job and population growth potential.
Just when you thought Austin’s housing market was becoming overvalued, Forbes recently rolled out their list of top cities to invest in housing for 2015 with Austin listed as the heavyweight champion. Not only is Austin forecasted to perform extremely well this year, 5 major Texas metro areas make up half of Forbes’ top 10 Best Buy Cites in 2015 Following Austin (No. 1), Texas cities with the best opportunities to buy include Houston (No. 3), Dallas (No. 5), San Antonio (No. 6) and Fort Worth (No. 10).
To create the list of best cities to invest in housing, Forbes teamed up with Local Market Monitor (LMM), a North Carolina-based data company that correlates home prices with average income to discover the most undervalued housing markets in United States.
Of the 105 largest metropolitan areas scanned by LMM, Austin came in first place with its population growth of 8.9% and jobs growth of 3.6%, surpassing national rates of a mere 2% for both.
Through their comprehensive research, Milken Institute discovered that the two underlying factors that drive the performance of top cities in America are technology and energy from oil. Another leading trait is the innovation advantage, which is the clustering of talent and technology in an entrepreneurial environment. Although Austin may not have the same concentration of such assets that one would find in San Francisco or Seattle, it provides an employment multiplier of close to 5; one tech position generating four other jobs. Additionally, the technological advances in horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing has helped cities in Texas as small as Victoria to the leading center of North American energy, the Houston-Sugarland-Baytown area, become leaders in production of shale energy in America.
Ranked second place, Austin has become the most consistent Top 5 finisher in the history of Milken Institute's Best-Performing Cities index.