The second quarter was a good one for the Houston-Sugar Land-Baytown metropolitan area, which has been named as one of the nation’s 20 strongest metro areas by the Brookings Institute.

The Washington, D.C. company’s quarterly MetroMonitor ranks the nation’s 100 largest metro areas for their economic performance based on five key indicators — employment, unemployment, output, home prices and foreclosure rates.

Houston led the nation in housing prices, with a 4.9 percent increase over the 2008 second quarter, according to the report. That compared with a 4.4 percent average decline among the Top 100 metro areas as a whole and a 1.7 percent decrease in the national average.

Texas overall was considered strong, with Austin, Dallas and San Antonio all also included in the Top 20 markets.

As a whole, the Top 20 areas experienced average employment losses of 1.7 percent from their peaks, and 17 have seen home prices rise over the past year, according to the report. By contrast, the 20 weakest-performing areas have seen average employment declines of 8.2 percent, while home prices have dropped by an average of 11 percent in the past year.

Source: houston.bizjournals.com
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