Blogs

Some of the states seeing the biggest increases are expanding due to booming energy industries, such as in Texas and North Dakota. Population growth is also fueling some economies. The top five states for GDP growth were also among the five largest for population growth last year.

“You’re going to find border states with heavy immigrant presence generating faster population growth,” says Jared Bernstein, senior fellow at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

The following are the states with the fastest growing economies, based on GDP growth.

Several weeks ago, the Austin Business Journal published a story about the plethora of upscale apartments rising up in the inner city. Though we mentioned RiverView at I-35 and Riverside Drive, we didn’t bring into the mix two other luxury apartment projects in development further to the east along the shores of Lady Bird Lake — South Shore District and Lakeshore Pearl.

The projects are close to town, however, and many units sport riverfront views. They also will come complete with expensive price tags like the other complexes in the city’s development pipeline.

Austinites no longer have to make the trek to the San Marcos, Comal or Guadalupe Rivers to float for fun.

Free-flowing water can be found in the Colorado River in Southeast Austin. It's tucked between the city's Roy Guerrero Park in the north, a small business district and the Colorado Wildlife Sanctuary in the south.

With the exception of the occasional airplane sighting, this is a serene patch of the river. This is virtually untouched by man and unheard of by most Austinites.

Realtor.com recently released a list of the top rental markets in the country, based on the most-searched. Three of the ten most-searched rental markets on Realtor.com are in Texas. Austin was the second most-searched market. The city has a median rent of $1,450. San Antonio ranked fourth. Landing tenth was Houston. Las Vegas was the most-searched city on the organization's website.

Here are the top 10 markets:
1. Las Vegas
Median rent: $1,100

2. Austin, Texas
Median rent: $1,450

3. Charlotte, N.C.
Median rent: $1,195

Rollingwood Mayor Barry Bone came down hard on the city of Austin and Austin City Limits producer C3 Presents in a scathing Op-Ed published in the Westlake Picayune.

"The once powerful Roman Empire slowly lost its way through corruption, debt, decadence and greed, resulting in loss of the very focus and drive that built that once powerful nation," Bone wrote in the Op-Ed.

Bankrate.com recently featured a list of the top ways buyers back away from a home listed for sale. These 10 itmes should be considered as you look to prepare a home for listing / selling.

Here are the top 5 from the list:

Rough Hollow Lakeway, an 1,800-acre master-plan community, joined Lupine Lane, a preschool and creative enrichment center, in celebrating the preschool graduation and groundbreaking for the school’s new Rough Hollow location on May 31.

Renovations of the park's grounds are happening at Auditorium Shores next year which means that 11 local festivals that regularly take place at Auditorium Shores are looking for alternate sites for 2014, according to the Austin Business Journal.

According to a park's department memo, six of the 17 events that use Auditorium Shores have booked alternate locations thus far, with high-profile events like Fun Fun Fun Fest, Urban Music Festival, 4th of July fireworks and a selection of South By Southwest concerts still without different locations.

For the fifth consecutive week, mortgage rates continued to rise, as the economy showed signs of strengthening. Concerns are growing that the Federal Reserve will soon slow its bond purchase program, which has been keeping rates near record lows for months, Freddie Mac reports in its weekly mortgage market survey.

Austin and the state of Texas received top honors for economic development and corporate investment from Area Development Magazine. The publication tracks corporate site selection and facilities planning across the U.S.

The Gold Shovel Award was given to Texas, Georgia, Alabama and Kansas, based on job creation and investment projects this past year.