When does 7.2 percent unemployment look good in Maryland? When it marks the end of -- or at least a pause in -- a rapidly worsening job situation. August was the fourth straight month of 7.2 percent, according to new Labor Department estimates. The rate ratcheted up to that point from 4.5 percent a year ago.

There's been a lot of chatter about the "R" word this week because Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, in a Q&A after a speech, said he thinks the recession is likely over. A majority of you disagree -- or at least 60 percent of you who took the poll that was part of Friday's live chat.

I took a look at Bernanke's remarks, and they're hardly "happy days are here again." He cautions that job growth probably won't be any great shakes next year, saying that most forecasters think the "pace of growth in 2010 will be moderate, less than you might expect given the depth of the recession":

And the arithmetic is that unless the economy grows, you know, significantly faster than its longer term growth rate, it’ll be relatively slow in creating jobs over and above those needed to employ people coming into the labor force, and therefore, the unemployment rate would tend to come down quite slowly. So that’s a risk, that’s a possibility.

The health of the housing market is influenced by the ease with which people can get and keep jobs. (Obviously there's a housing connection, or I wouldn't be blogging about it.)

But sometimes it's the loss of a job that prompts someone to buy a house.

Continue reading "When 7.2% unemployment looks good" »

Posted by Jamie Smith Hopkins at 7:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)
Categories: The economy
        

If you like to know how we compare with the rest of the nation, the Brookings Institution's Metropolitan Policy Program has just the report for you: It ranks the 100 largest metro areas on economic and housing-market measures of health.

I wrote a story for today's paper about the economic stats -- we're 18th best, for instance, as measured by the recent change in employment. (As in, it's not as bad here as it is in 82 other places. Woohoo!) The Baltimore metro area was in or near the top quarter of metro areas on most of the economic measurements.

But what about the housing stats? Those are a different story.

Our 5.8 percent drop in home prices in the spring, compared with a year earlier, ranked us 73rd out of 100. (With 100 being worst, at least from a homeowner point of view.)

The metro area was 61st out of 100 for its share of bank-owned homes -- 2.84 for every 1,000 mortgageable properties. (The average for all metro areas was higher, but only because some big regions are so hard hit.) These homes, which were foreclosed on and taken back by lenders, are typically called "REOs" for "real estate owned."

Baltimore's worst ranking on the report: Measured by the change in bank-owned properties from the first quarter of the year to the second quarter, it was 83rd out of 100.

Continue reading "How Baltimore stacks up" »

Posted by Jamie Smith Hopkins at 9:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (5)
Categories: Housing stats, The economy, The foreclosure mess
        

What's the most important thing a home buyer needs? A job -- which is why anyone interested in the fate of the housing market will be equally interested to know that Maryland employers created 10,000 jobs last month.

Well -- sort of.

Stay with me here.

As it often the case with economic surveys, the Labor Department figure comes with asterisks. The number is preliminary and could be revised down the road. It's also adjusted to try to account for seasonal variations -- the normal ups and downs of employment, like school bus drivers losing their jobs in early summer. As it happens, the state says, it's been a particularly difficult year to adjust because the usual patterns are all cattywampus.

Unadjusted, the job numbers are actually down, not up. But employment always falls in July because it's being compared with employment around June 12, when school is usually still in session. The 6,300-job decline last month is the smallest for a July since 1999.

Thus, a big seasonally adjusted gain. The biggest in four years.

It might be all statistical noise -- unemployment is up. But I've been hearing some encouraging things. Job search engine Indeed.com says Baltimore had the second-most job postings per capita among large metro areas in the second quarter (second only to Washington). And it has the third-best ratio of postings to unemployed residents -- 1 to 1.

Some of that is about the power of relativity -- as in, it's worse elsewhere. Job postings in Baltimore are down 5 percent from a year ago, vs. a 30 percent drop nationwide, Indeed.com says.

It sure would be good for the housing market, and especially the foreclosure rate, if job creation revs up in a big way.

Posted by Jamie Smith Hopkins at 7:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)
Categories: The economy
        

Jay Hancock notes on his blog today that the Conference Board is seeing good help-wanted stats -- at least relatively speaking -- for Maryland.

I'll let him sum it up:

Maryland had the best ratio in the nation of the number of jobs listed compared with unemployed people seeking work; to wit, there are two people looking for work for every one help-wanted posting. Not perfect, but compare that with Michigan, where there are 10 people looking for work for every opening listed. In Pennsylvania there were nearly five unemployed folks for every opening.

Posted by Jamie Smith Hopkins at 9:16 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: The economy
        

A lot, the county thinks. Possibly.

Not surprisingly, county leaders are having a hard time getting the secretive "No Such Agency" to loosen its lips.

What we do know (because even secretive agencies have to file notices with the Federal Register) is that NSA wants to build 5.8 million square feet of space at Fort Meade over a 20-year period -- enough to house 11,000 employees.

What we don't know is whether those employees would be holding 11,000 new jobs, or whether they're current employees who will be moved from other buildings on and off Fort Meade. Or some combination of the two options.

What's this got to do with real estate wonkery, you ask? Several things, as it happens.

Continue reading "New jobs -- er, maybe" »

Posted by Jamie Smith Hopkins at 8:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Categories: The economy
        

The U.S. economy officially peaked in December 2007, which means all of last year the country was in a recession. But what about Maryland?

It probably depends on your definition. The National Bureau of Economic Research, which "calls" recessions, makes its decisions mainly by looking at job numbers, income and economic growth (gross domestic product).

I mention this because today the federal government released GDP by state, which gives us a peek at local economic activity.

Maryland's GDP growth, which was 1.8 percent in 2007, slowed to 1.3 percent last year. The United States saw a much more precipitous drop -- from 2 percent to 0.7 percent. That's according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis.

(Wait, you wonks are saying, isn't a recession by definition a drop in GDP? Like, two consecutive quarters or somesuch? Nope, the NBER says. A recession frequently does show a two-quarter-or-more drop in GDP, but not always.)

So that's the story on GDP -- better in Maryland than in the U.S., but less growth than before. As for income: Maryland's per-capita personal income rose 3.5 percent last year. That's also a slowdown from 2007, when per-person income in the state jumped nearly 6 percent. (The country saw a similar-sized drop in per-capita income growth, but it was lower than Maryland's to begin with. So its 2008 increase of 2.9 percent is also lower than Maryland's.)

And what about employment? No growth there. Maryland shed almost 10,000 jobs last year, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That's a drop of almost half a percent. Exactly the same decrease the nation as a whole saw last year, as it happens.

So: Local recession or not? It might be a semantics issue at this point. For the housing market, at least, a slowdown in economic growth and income growth paired with a loss of jobs isn't good news, whether you slap the "R" word on it or not.

Posted by Jamie Smith Hopkins at 10:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: The economy
        

What made me go "whoa," though, was the job-cutting. The state had about 40,000 fewer jobs in January than it did a year earlier, according to the most recent Labor Department figures. The federal government significantly revised its 2008 job figure in Maryland so instead of a gain it's a loss.

Jobs and housing are inextricably linked, which is why I'm mentioning it. I'd like to hear from job hunters: Are you seeing openings in your field? How's the search going? And if you're out of work and a homeowner, how are you dealing with the mortgage?

Posted by Jamie Smith Hopkins at 7:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: The economy