Albuquerque #2 Of Nation’s Best Cities

Kiplinger’s Personal Finance analyzed 258 metropolitan areas, including visits to the top ten finalists, before ranking Albuquerque as the nation’s second best city for living and work. Huntsville, Alabama, with a large aerospace and missile-defense industry, ranked first. In researching Kiplinger’s Best Cities this year, the authors kept the focus on best places to live. But they wanted to emphasize the best cities for work, too. So they selected those that have stable employment rates in key job areas as well as provide new career opportunities. A premium was put on places that will lead the country in employment growth when the recovery takes off.” Albuquerque is “a beautiful, wonderful place.”
In a Time magazine article in May in an article on where jobs are going and how they are changing, New Mexico was ranked #2 for job growth at a rate of increase of 2% new jobs a year. For both surveys, the rating was influenced by the growth in the movie industry jobs as well as continued technology growth, especially in the solar energy sector. CNN last week in their “Bottom Line” show, reinforced this observations saying we are attracting creative class type jobs --- movie related, engineering, design, etc. So much for being known as a call center mecca. ABQ has evolved to a whole new level of trained professionals.
All of this bodes well for our real estate. With continued high employment, low foreclosures and steady job growth, ABQ is a good place to invest in housing. Our decline in home values seems to have leveled off as sales pick up.