Houston’s economic strength and receptive business environment makes it a wise choice for real estate investment.
      Home to 19 Fortune 500 companies, Houston is the fifth largest center for Fortune 500 companies, ranking just behind New York, Chicago, San Francisco and Los Angeles. Of the world’s largest, non-U.S. based corporations, 49 have retail operations in Houston. In mid-2002, Dun and Bradstreet reported that 29,626 Houston-area business firms have annual sales of $1 million or more annually.
      Employment diversity has grown over the last two decades. In the early 1980s, 85 percent of all Houston jobs were tied to the energy industry. Although Houston has 5,000 energy related firms, 52 percent of all jobs are in non-energy fields such as business services, aerospace, medicine, technology and manufacturing. More than 49,000 people work in the world famous Texas Medical Center where heart surgery was pioneered. The Port of Houston is the sixth largest port in the world, the largest U.S. port in terms of foreign tonnage and second in the U.S. in total tonnage.
      Houston’s housing is the most affordable in the nation’s 10 most populated metropolitan areas. Housing costs are 44 percent below the average of 27 U.S. urban populations of more than 1.7 million. The city has no appreciable land use zoning ordinances or natural land development barriers. Wet and dry utilities are readily available in the city’s surrounding area, and raw land prices are relatively inexpensive in comparison to other metropolitan areas.
      Development of utilities is facilitated through the use of political subdivisions regulated by Texas called Municipal Utility Districts (MUDs). A MUD finances a portion of a developer’s development costs through the issuance of tax-free bonds at substantially lower interest rates than a homebuyer can obtain. The bonds are repaid from taxes collected from property owners within the MUD.
      This valuable tool allows a homeowner to finance a portion of the development costs at a tax-free rate of interest over a long period of time. This keeps property costs down and the savings are passed on from the developer to the homeowner. This is in sharp contrast to the rest of the country where developers must recoup all development costs and profits up-front at the time the lot or home is sold.
      Houston’s economic strength continues to fuel job growth and the demand for quality housing. The real estate development team at Sam Yager Inc. understands the market and how to provide successful, profitable projects.