Market Data

Located on the rim of the 32,000 square mile Texas Hill Country, Austin is the capital city of Texas and the home of the state's flagship university, the University of Texas at Austin. Austin, the 16th largest city in the nation, is located 225 miles from the Mexican border and is within 200 miles of three of the ten largest U.S. cities (Dallas, Houston and San Antonio).

Austin's unbeatable combination of real estate, infrastructure and skilled labor is attractive to businesses that wish to compete - and win - in the 21st Century. The entire region is undergoing a nationally recognized growth spurt. The Central Texas region is fast becoming a national leader in some of the hottest, fastest developing industries, like computers, software, semiconductors, film, music, telecommunications, multimedia and bioscience. And industries like transaction services and logistics and distribution are keeping pace to supporting this rapid, regional growth. One of Austin's strongest advantages is its low business costs. Based on an overall business cost index calculated among four components (unit labor costs, energy costs, state and local tax burden and office rents), Austin's overall business costs are 8 percent below the national average.

Austin had solid employment growth in the 90s-a stellar 60 percent growth between 1990 and 1999 with 250,000 new non-agricultural jobs added. Austin only follows Las Vegas in job growth percentage in the 1990s. In fact, approximately 10 percent of all new jobs in the State of Texas were created in the Austin-San Marcos MSA last year. Yet the Austin area population represents only 5.4 percent of the state's population. Moreover, Austin's robust economy positively affected all employment sectors. Several sectors out-performed statewide growth rates during 1999, especially Services (6.8 percent), Trade (8.7 percent), Transportation/ Communications/ Public Utilities (8.3 percent), and Construction (11 percent). The rich pool of venture capital available to Austin has helped fuel the region's growth. Over the next ten years the central Texas area is expected to add 1,000,000 new residents and the related business growth that comes with population growth. Austin is focus of much of this expansion. Consequently, it is an excellent place to invest for the future.