El Paso Dodges Economic Recession

This folks is why I am glad I bought a home in El Paso:

In most parts of the United States, Americans have lost hope that their homes will restore their value or that unemployment will drop significantly anytime soon. But in the westernmost corner of Texas, there’s more than hope — there’s an unlikely building boom happening. The U.S. military base Fort Bliss, covering an area larger than Rhode Island, has become one of America’s largest military installations, and that’s having a dramatic impact on an otherwise depressed economy.

Congress might not have known it then, but its move to expand Fort Bliss as part of the 2005 changes under the Base Closure and Realignment Commission (BRAC) has coincidentally saved El Paso, Texas from falling into the depths of the latest economic recession. Whereas home construction has continued to drop to record lows across most of the country, this city of 751,000 is experiencing relatively robust growth. In fact, the influx of soldiers, military personnel and their families has created a shortage of housing units on the base, helping drive up demand for housing and developers in El Paso, according to U.S. military officials.  [Fortune]

Read the rest of the article, but the author is right that housing prices have not really gone up, but they haven’t dropped either.  It doesn’t really matter to me because when I leave El Paso I’m not going to sell my home anyway; considering the demand for military rentals, I’ll be renting it out.