Housing crash hammers L.A. GDP
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New data today from the U.S Bureau of Economic Analysis quantifies what many of us already see and feel: The housing crash and its accompanying job losses in the construction, real estate and mortgage industries have dragged down the overall Los Angeles area economy. The Los Angeles-Orange County area shares this pain with much of the Sun Belt, as the BEA puts it:
In 2008, real GDP by metropolitan area declined in 111 of the 366 MSAs. Many metropolitan areas in the Sun Belt, which had previously experienced large growth in the housing market, were adversely affected by protracted housing declines. Much of the decline in the housing-related industries (construction and finance and insurance) can be attributed to metropolitan areas in Arizona, California, Florida, and Nevada. Specifically, the areas of Los Angeles-Long Beach-Santa Ana, CA; Miami-Fort Lauderdale-Pompano Beach, FL; Phoenix-Mesa-Scottsdale, AZ; and Reno-Sparks, NV were hard hit. Metropolitan areas in Florida—Cape Coral-Fort Myers, FL; Punta Gorda, FL; Naples-Marco Island, FL; Palm Coast, FL; and Bradenton-Sarasota-Venice, FL—were among the hardest hit in the nation by the construction slowdown.
The full release is here. There you’ll also be able to graph trends like the decline in LA area GDP growth, below. --Peter Y. Hong