Where There's Job Growth There's Appreciation

In this new age of real estate investing one of the keys I look for in a new market is job growth. How many of you have seen the headlines in the newspapers about job losses? Like Ford Motor Company and GM laying off 30,000 plus workers. The ripple effect of these layoffs is huge in each market where they occur. If the jobs are not replaced the service sector loses 2-3 jobs per professional jobs lost over a 2-3 year span. Conversley when a market has professional job gains then 2-3 service sector jobs are created over the next 2-3 years. When you have these new jobs in large numbers it drives a real estate market up. You have large numbers of people moving to that market and supply and demand take over. Looking back to 1995 the huge job growth in Denver in the tech sector made for a 5 year run of mostly double digit appreciation.
One of the tools I use to find these hot new markets is ecodevdirectory.com which stands for economic developement directory. Each major and most minor markets have a economic developement agency that promotes the area to businesses looking to relocate. You can search every state in the US or even outside of the US for info on where the jobs are. Some of these agencies post which companies they have brought to their market and the ones that are in the process of relocating. Or you can call them up and ask what is going on in their market. Pay close attention to the type of companies and how many employees they will have. The auto companies have a bigger impact on a local economy then most others because when they relocate the parts manufacturers tend to relocate too. That adds more like 3-4 service sector jobs to the area in the next 2-3 years. Just look what's going on in San Antonio right now with Toyota moving in. That market is going nuts. I suggest spending time cruising ecodevdirectory.com and see if you can find the next hot market.
Until my next post happy investing to all.