Arizona Real Estate Notebook

Elliot Pollack reports some positive economic trends in his newsletter this week.

IHS Global Insight, a leading national economics firm, predicts that Arizona will be one of only five states that will grow at a rate of 2.0% or more annually, between now and 2017. Other states include Florida, Texas, Idaho and Utah.

In that regard, employment in Arizona continues to grow. Employment grew by 2.2% in the state September 2011 over September 2010 and 0.7% year-to-date through September. For Greater Phoenix, job growth for September over September was 2.3% or 38,700 jobs and year-to-date employment grew by 1.0% above year earlier levels. With the exception of government, construction, and professional services, all other sectors posted year to date employment growth. The unemployment rate declined to 9.1% from 9.8% a year ago.