Wednesday, February 18, 2015

January Economic Indicators Now Available

The January edition of our Monthly Business Economic Indicators is now on our website. This month includes the following changes and highlights:

Unemployment rate remains unchanged since September at 4.6%. At this time last year, our unemployment rate was 5.2%

Commercial real estate figures have been updated. The overall vacancy rate for Frederick County for 2014 was 11.5% which is significantly lower than the year end 2010 vacancy rate of 15.8%. The flex market saw the largest decrease in vacancy rates going from 23.4% in 2010 to 13.2%.

The residential housing market saw the biggest increase in average home price increase out of any county in the state of Maryland from January 2014 to January 2015. The average home price in January 2015 was $300,089 compared to $260,630 the year before. This represents a 15.1% increase.

January 2015 had one of the best years in the last 5 years for the number of commercial and industrial permits issued. A total of 78 permits were issued, which ties for 2013 for the highest number since 2011.