With a “highly educated workforce” and strong employment growth in the healthcare, professional and business service sectors, Columbus, Ohio, “continues to outperform all other Ohio MSAs and most others in the Midwest,” the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland reports.
The state capital’s recovery is in “high gear,” with unemployment 6 percent and falling as the area’s largest employers — Ohio State University, JPMorgan Chase & Co., OhioHealth, and Nationwide Mutual Insurance — experience “significant growth.”
Job growth, strong investor demand and consumer confidence have boosted home prices, which have also benefited from declining foreclosure rates.
New-home construction is back above prerecesssion levels after more than four years of subpar growth. Although housing supply remains “exceptionally tight,” the residential construction labor force has recently begun to grow, which is helping reduce the mismatch between increased demand and short supply of the region’s housing. Source: clevelandfed.org.