In my first City Talk column of 2012, I made some local economic predictions for the coming year.
How’d those turn out?
In that column a year ago, I expressed considerable confidence about the continuation of slow but steady growth. That’s what we’ve seen, for the most part, although a number of the details played out differently than I expected.
For the housing market, I predicted a solid increase in overall sales, a moderate decline in prices and some improvement in housing starts.
Well, prices seem to have generally stabilized, although we have continued to see some downward pressure on high-end properties.
According to Zillow’s Home Value Index for the Savannah metro area (Chatham, Effingham and Bryan counties), prices in November were up .3 percent compared to November 2011.
By contrast, Zillow’s index shows prices up 5.2 percent nationally in November 2012 compared to a year earlier.
Clearly, prices bottomed a little sooner and began edging upward more quickly than I expected.
We have seen solid increases both in sales and in housing starts in 2012.
Local residential sales were up 31 percent in November compared to November 2011.
Home building permits for the first three quarters of 2012 were about 15 percent ahead of last year, according to the most recent Coastal Empire Economic Monitor from Armstrong Atlantic State University’s Center for Regional Analysis.
That makes 2012 the best year for local residential construction since 2008. (Too bad we built all those excess units in 2008, when the recession and the housing bust were both underway.)
In that New Year’s Day column, I also predicted the local economy would finally begin adding jobs in 2012.
It took a number of months for that turnaround to occur, but the Georgia Department of Labor estimates local payrolls for November increased by 4,700 compared to a year ago.
That leaves us still well below the pre-recession peak of employment, but annual job growth over 3 percent is about as much as we can expect in this economy.
After lagging for several years, the leisure and hospitality sector added jobs at a 5.1 percent clip over the past year. That reflects strong trends for tourism.
In that column a year ago, I noted that upside surprises were more likely than downside ones, even speculating about the possibility of Whole Foods coming to Savannah. That was confirmed a few weeks later.
But I would never have dreamed that we would see so many investors put their money behind major projects in the greater downtown area.
Beyond the future plaza with Whole Foods on Victory Drive, there are numerous new hotels, apartment complexes and other promising developments in the works.
We also saw an incredible year for filmmaking in Savannah, including “CBGB” last summer and “Killing Winston Jones” currently. And there were myriad other film and photography shoots, all of which pumped money into the local economy.
At the end of that column a year ago, I mentioned the potential negative effects of the local political strife involving the city manager position and the mayoral race.
Mayor Edna Jackson has set an upbeat tone for the city, and we’re moving ahead — for now — with low-key acting city manager Stephanie Cutter.
What didn’t happen in 2012
Overall port activity will be up marginally in 2012 compared to 2011, but the recovery has been choppy, especially in recent months.
The total number of passengers flying in and out of Savannah/Hilton Head International has picked up in recent months but will be essentially flat for the year. That means we’re still down more than 20 percent from the 2005 peak.
In 2012, we did not see any new manufacturers announce plans to move to the much-touted megasite.
And we did not pass the T-SPLOST in 2012.
I know I’m in the minority on this one, but we missed a real opportunity there to make much needed investments in our local transportation infrastructure.
We’re going to see less state and federal transportation funding for the foreseeable future, so we’ll have to step up to the plate if we are committed to some projects.
The 1 percent sales tax dedicated to transportation projects was unpopular for a variety of reasons, but I haven’t heard a credible proposal for any funding system that’s more transparent.
We also did not pass the Unified Zoning Ordinance in 2012. The important update to the zoning codes in Savannah and unincorporated Chatham County would certainly streamline bureaucratic processes and encourage private investment.
And we didn’t see the world end in 2012.
We face many problems here in Savannah, but the local economy, like the national economy, is diverse and resilient.
I’ll be back next week with some predictions for 2013.
City Talk appears every Tuesday and Sunday. Bill Dawers can be reached via billdawers@comcast.net and http://www.billdawers.com. Send mail to 10 East 32nd St., Savannah, GA 31401.