Too low - can this really be a problem?  In my opinion, yes and let me explain.  The unemployment rate in the Austin area is as tight as it has been since 2001.  Our jobless rate fell to 3.2%.  Job growth is very strong at 4.4% in April.  A low unemployment rate means our economy is very healthy.  So does the high job growth number.  So just why is this a problem?

The last time Austin's unemployment rate was this low we had enormous competition for jobs.  Qualified candidates could pick and choose just where they wanted to be in many cases.  Salaries and hourly wages went up. People were getting signing bonuses in many cases for white collar jobs.  I'm not as concerned for professional positions as I am for service sector jobs.

Let's take the Bee Cave and Lakeway area and look a bit more deeply.  This is an area with a relative vacuum of employable people.  Not that there aren't qualified people here, but there just aren't enough of them.  With the opening of the Hill Country Galleria Mall around the corner and so much other growth I just don't know where employees will come from.  The way I see it, businesses in the mall and other areas in the area will have to offer a higher wage in order to attract people from other parts of town.  I also see businesses being short-staffed all over the place.  This will lead to less than good customer service.  Employers will also hire people they would not ordinarily hire.  This could lead to worse things than just bad customer service.  It could lead to employee theft.

I'm saying this because I was an employer back in 2001.  It was terribly hard finding good help, especially when trying to keep labor costs down.  I just hope we don't see an end to this "problem" like we did back in 2001.  Our economy collapsed along with the national tech market.  What I would rather see is more people moving to Austin to fill these jobs.

So why address this in a real estate blog?  More jobs means more people moving to the area.  More people means a higher demand for housing.  More demand for housing means better appreciation for existing homes in most cases, which is good for sellers.  The sown-side is that properties will be valued higher by the tax appraisal district, which means rising property taxes.  I guess we can have our cake, but we just can't eat it.  I hope the icing is good...