CALIFORNIA ECONOMY - JOBS - REAL ESTATE - IMPROVING 2012

The Finance Bulletin contained encouraging labor market figures, suggesting an ever-improving job market in California. Specifically, during the first 10 months of the year, California gained 244,300 nonfarm jobs, or an average of 24,400 jobs per month, which was the strongest pace of job growth since 2005. This improved growth rate resulted in an additional 0.1% drop in the state unemployment rate, to 10.1%, which is 1.4% lower than a year ago.

Real estate is continuing its comeback and is up over 10%, when compared to October of last year, with over 544,000 units sold in the month of October. The median price of an existing home has increased 23% over the past year, to $341,370, and unsold inventory has dropped to 3.1 months, the shortest supply of inventory since 2005. With both the job market and the labor market continuing to improve, it is hoped that the revenue picture for the state will improve as well, since collections are still upside down for the year.

“The housing recovery that started earlier in 2012 continues to gain momentum,” said Mark Fleming, chief economist for CoreLogic, in a release. “The recovery is geographically broad-based with almost all markets experiencing some appreciation.”