Posted: Tue, 25 Jan 2011 12:23 PM - 14,039 Readers

By: Tiffany Young

Much like the Home Builders Association of Greater Austin’s and the Austin Board of Realtors’ Housing Forecast on Jan. 13, the economic forecast for Lake Travis, held by Moreland Properties Jan. 24, showed positivism not seen in the past few years.
“Texas lagged into a recession and we’ll likely lead out,” speaker Mark Sprague, director of business development for Mission Mortgage said.

Sprague shared several signs that the market had already bottomed out in Austin and Lake Travis and was beginning to recover, including steady job growth, stock prices increasing, interest rates rising, bond prices falling and an increase in spending.

He added that the best news for the economy is that corporate profits are up. He said the likely cause was corporations and government doing more with fewer employees.

On the housing front, Sprague said home sales in Austin are on their way back up and luxury homes in Lakeway will continue to sell.

“There’s an overabundance out in this area, but those with amenities will do well,” Sprague said. “I cannot say enough for your school district—you’re in a great school district. Economically, we’ve had a dramatic change at Lake Travis.”

While Sprague was mostly optimistic in his economic forecast for the upcoming year, he also saw many hurdles for the area, mainly due to a national economy that will take longer to bounce back.

“The banking systems are strained—and that’s an understatement. The banking crisis has not been solved yet as a country. Most small businesses are not planning to expand in the next few years. Unemployment will probably stay around 9 percent [nationally] for the next year or two,” Sprague said.

He said he expected the recovery to be about two years out in Austin and five years out nationally.