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SAN ANTONIO'S STARTLING '06 SALES RECORDSAN ANTONIO (mysanantonio.com) – Marking the sixth consecutive year of record-breaking building, contractors started more homes here last year than there are residents in Alamo Heights, Boerne, Castroville and Lytle combined.
In 1990, builders started just 2,000 homes. Since then, the area market has been steadily booming. Last year, builders started almost 19,100 new single-family homes, 15 percent more than in 2005, according to Metrostudy, a housing research firm.
Homebuyers closed on almost 17,000 new single-family homes last year, up 17 percent from the previous year.
San Antonio ranked 95th nationally in price appreciation, with the median price of existing homes rising more than 7 percent and average sales prices rising 9 percent, Inselmann said.
Although San Antonio's inventory of new homes for sale rose because of declining West and East Coast investor interest, the area supply of new homes for sale held at less than two months, still the lowest in Texas.
Source: RECON, 01/12/07 •
HEIGHTS 'HOTNESS' FACTORSAN ANTONIO (mysanantonio.com) – The city's hottest neighborhoods were clustered in the north or northwest suburbs and within Loop 410, according to statistics compiled by the San Antonio Board of Realtors.
Alamo Heights, with sales remaining constant, enjoyed the highest price appreciation. The average sales price in 2006 was more than $438,000, a gain of 22 percent. Braun Heights' sales volume for the year increased 32 percent, with the average sales price gaining 18 percent to more than $259,000.
Other neighborhoods enjoying hot sales price appreciation of between 10 and 15 percent are Sonoma Ranch, The Heights at Stone Oak, Deerfield, Babcock North, Carriage Hills, Hunter's Creek, Shavano Creek, The Dominion, Canyon Springs, Monte Vista and Boerne.
Source: RECON, 01/12/07 •
MICROSOFT PICKS RIVER CITYSAN ANTONIO (mysanantonio.com) – Microsoft Corp. will build a $550 million data center nearly as big as the Alamodome on 44 acres in Westover Hills. This will be the company's second major data center and the first outside Washington, its home state.
The city council has approved a ten-year, 100 percent tax abatement worth $20.7 million and voted to provide $5.2 million from the CPS Energy economic development fund for electrical infrastructure. City officials hope Microsoft’s presence will act as a catalyst to attract more information technology jobs.
Microsoft's 470,000-square-foot, two-building center will be almost five times bigger than the nearby Lowe’s $68 million, 100,000-square-foot data center, which is currently under construction.
When it is fully operating in a few years, Microsoft's data center will bring 75 high-tech jobs and become the biggest customer of CPS Energy, which supplies more than 25 percent of the city budget, said the utility's chief executive, Milton Lee. The project will generate construction and support service jobs and will contribute $1.4 million annually in CPS Energy revenues. Microsoft's $550 million investment will provide immediate annual tax revenue of $8.7 million for the Northside Independent School District and another $1.3 million to the Bexar County Hospital District.
If the Bexar County Commissioners Court approves its incentive package, construction will begin in two months and be finished two years later.
Source: RECON, 01/19/07