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The recovery will start with “chips and distribution” centers, Zandi predicted, which means among the first to receive encouraging news about their local economies will be: Tampa, Orlando, Baltimore, Memphis, Philadelphia, Central New Jersey, San Antonio, Austin, Phoenix, San Diego, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Oakland, Sacramento and Portland, OR.
Next on board for recovery will be areas where software and travel are heavily represented: Atlanta, Charlotte, Indianapolis, Chicago, Minneapolis, Salt Lake City, San Jose and Houston, he said.
Behind these will be metro areas where telecom and money management outfits have the most pull, including Boston, Pittsburgh, Kansas City, Oakland and San Francisco.
By next year’s first quarter, Zandi added, traditional manufacturing hubs like Detroit, Milwaukee and cities in Ohio will see improvement, followed by places where investment banking and commercial aircraft building are tops — including Seattle and New York City.
Ahead of the pack today, according to Stan Duobinis, NAHB’s director of forecasting, are places where home building, defense, health care and tourism are top industries. This includes cities in central and south Florida, Southern California, Las Vegas, San Antonio, Philadelphia, Washington, D.C. and Baltimore.
But Duobinis warned that the road to recovery wouldn’t exactly be short.
Employment grew at an annual rate of more than 1% in only five states between last February and this February: Hawaii, Nevada, New Mexico, Florida and Alaska.
These are all included in Duobinis’ list of the top 10 states with the most robust economies. The others on the list are: Arizona, Vermont, South Carolina, Wyoming and the District of Columbia.
His picks for the 10 weakest states are: North Carolina, New York, Michigan, Oklahoma, Connecticut, Delaware, Utah, Ohio, Massachusetts and Missouri.
Single-family home sales and production are likely to gain in more than half of all states this year, Duobinis forecasted, primarily in the South and Southwest.
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