Thursday, November 29, 2018

Unemployment Rate Drop Leads Nation

New Mexico’s wage job production continues to rock along, at least in Albuquerque and the rural counties.
Statewide, there was a net of 23,100 wage jobs that appeared between October 2017 and October 2018, a 2.8% increase. Albuquerque scored the same 2.8% growth which meant 11,000 new metro Duke City jobs over the year.
The Department of Workforce Solutions released the numbers yesterday in the Labor Market Review newsletter.
Seasonally adjusted, our job gain was 2.7%. Utah appears to have tied Washington with a 3.3% gain that was second nationally. (Nevada led.) Colorado was “down” with us with a 2.7% gain. New Mexico’s seasonally adjusted year-over-year drop in the unemployment rate—from 6% to 4.6% led the states.
Among the other three metro areas, Santa Fe did OK with 800 new jobs, a 1.3% increase. Farmington gained 100 jobs, Las Cruces lost 200.
Among the sectors, statewide leisure and hospitality (mostly tourism) led with 7,400 new jobs, year over year, a 7.7% gain. (Lament: Oh, those low paying jobs…) Professional and business services followed with a 5.2% gain and 5,500 jobs. At 5.7%, transportation, warehousing and utilities were another big percentage gainer. The sector added 1,400 jobs.
Government added a net of 500 jobs. The gain came in local government, up 2,000. State government offset by losing 1,200 jobs. State government added 1,300 jobs in metro Albuquerque.

Monday, November 12, 2018

Home Sales Continue Up on Year-Over-Year Basis

As interest rates edged up, the October surprise in the metro Albuquerque market for single family detached homes is a drop of just 14 units from September to make 1,017 closed sales during the month. The percentage change was a minus 1.4% from the 1,031 closed sales during September. The October closed sales represented a 3.6% increase from 982 closed sales during October 2017.
Deals are getting done. October’s closed sales consumed nearly all the 1,037 sales that were pending in September. During October pending sales increased to 1,094, up 54 units, or 5.2%, from September.
Those 1,017 October sales closed in an average of 43 days, a period three days, or 6.5%, faster than a year before, but three days longer than the 40-day average sales period during September. The 43-day average time on market was the longest since 46 days during April.
The 1,337 homes listed for sale during October was up from the last two Octobers. It was 1,315 during October 2017 and 1,224 a year earlier. However, 22 fewer homes entered the market during October than during September, a month with 30 days where October has 31.
The median price of those October closed sales—$199,000—was flat during October, both as compared to September 2018 and to October 2017. For attached homes (townhouses and condos), it was different. The October median price—$160,500—was highest of 2018, up from $150,000 in September and from $151,500 during October 2017.
The average price dropped $5,080 from October 2017 to $231,462 in October 2018 and was down $7,820 from September. October’s average price was the lowest since March.