Three powerhouse metropolitan areas—New York, Los Angeles, and Houston—together accounted for one of every seven new jobs created in the country over the last three years. These top three markets added 300,000+ new jobs from 2012 through 2014. A total of 17 metro areas added at least 100,000 new jobs during that three-year period.
Note that 6 of the top 17 job growth markets over the last three years were in California: Los Angeles, San Francisco, Riverside/San Bernardino, San Jose, Orange County, and San Diego. Combined, the California markets quietly added 926,600 jobs from 2012 through 2014, or one out of every eight new jobs in the country.
Looking forward, four markets are expected to add over 250,000 new jobs over the next three years: New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Atlanta. Job growth in all three of the biggest Texas metros—Houston, Dallas, and Austin—is expected to slow due to the drop in oil prices. If the job growth projections hold, New York and Los Angeles will have added a combined total of over 1.3 million jobs during the current economic expansion but built far fewer housing units to accommodate that demand.
Job growth is the number one driver of new home demand, as adults with incomes are the largest proportion of home buyers. Household formation data is not reliable for projecting housing demand. Call me or email me or any of our local consultants if you are interested in seeing the 50+ pages of data that we analyze on the top 66 markets in the country every month, or if you desire a more in-depth analysis on your specific investment decisions.
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