AngelouEconomics Economic & Technology Forecast

Well, it was Annual Economic & Technology Forecast day ... again ... and that meant we were up at the Austin Convention Center waiting for the forecast from the Austin's most-famous pecuniary prognosticator, Angelos Angelou, who told us how much more increases in housing prices we can expect. Angelos predicted that we will see moderate increases in housing prices, lower than the 7.2% average increase in 2007, but that we will not see a decrease in housing prices despite the significant price decrease nationwide and the local decrease in number of home sales. Angelos predicted that Austin's strong economic and population growth coupled with a large reduction in new housing starts would keep housing prices up. Angelos mentioned that he gets a lot of questions about whether there will be a significant decrease in prices in the downtown condo market - he doesn't think there will be. He sees substantial demand for downtown condos, and thinks that market will perform similarly to the rest of Austin - flat for the next several years, followed by price increases.

The outlook for the national market, covered both by Angelos and Zanny Minto-Beddoes of the Economist, doesn't sound so rosy. The housing/subprime collapse, coupled with high oil prices and a weak labor market could lead to recession or stagflation. That could cause a decrease in consumer spending, which would compound the problems.