Texas Wealth on the Move...But to Where?

This from Forbes.com (http://www.forbes.com/)

Where America's Money Is Moving
Written by Jon Bruner (edited here for length)

Low taxes, warm sunshine and deep discounts on real estate. No wonder IRS data shows the wealthiest among us are headed south. Surprise: America's wealthy like warm weather and low taxes. That's the takeaway from IRS data, analyzed by Forbes, on moves between counties. We looked for counties that the rich are moving to in big numbers.

The dominance of the list by Florida and Texas--the former has eight of the top 20 counties, the latter four-- makes sense to Robert Shrum, manager of state affairs at the Tax Foundation in Washington, D.C., since neither state has an income tax. "If you're a high-income earner, then that, from a tax perspective, is going to be a driving decider if you're going to move to one of those two states," Shrum says.

After accounting for property taxes, Shrum's analysis shows that Texas has the fourth-lowest personal tax burden in the country, and Florida has the eighth lowest. Shrum also points to eight states that have targeted wealthy households with extra-high tax brackets: California, New Jersey, New York, Maryland, Hawaii, Oregon, Connecticut and Wisconsin. Six of the top 10 counties the rich are fleeing are located in those states.

Here are Texas' entries in the Top 20, which all happen to be in the San Antonio region:

No. 4: Llano County, Texas, North of San Antonio
Arriving average income per capita: $44,324
Departing average income per capita: $22,541
Stationary household average income per capita: $26,201
Total arriving people: 1,192
Total departing people: 1,018
Top origin: Burnet County, Texas (312 people)

No. 6: Bandera County, Texas, West of San Antonio
Arriving average income per capita: $37,849
Departing average income per capita: $18,092
Stationary household average income per capita: $24,536
Total arriving people: 1,396
Total departing people: 1,192
Top origin: Bexar County, Texas (458 people)

No. 8: Kendall County, Texas, Northwest of San Antonio
Arriving average income per capita: $51,713
Departing average income per capita: $29,013
Stationary household average income per capita: $41,590
Total arriving people: 2,987
Total departing people: 1,711
Top origin: Bexar County, Texas (1,131 people)

No. 20: Gillespie County, Texas, Northwest of San Antonio
Arriving average income per capita: $35,890
Departing average income per capita: $22,572
Stationary household average income per capita: $30,350
Total arriving people: 1,232
Total departing people: 893
Top origin: Kerr County, Texas (170 people)

Houstonians Spend Far Less on Designer Coffee

From notes and quotes in the Houston Business Journal and the Denver Business Journal:

It seems that Houstonians are fooled by all the hype surrounding designer coffee beverages from Starbucks and other national coffee retailers. Mint.com, an online personal finance website, has posted it's lists of cities that spend the most and the least on designer coffee. Houston made the Top 10 list for Least Amount spent yearly on coffee, coming in at an average of $310/year per person in 2009 and around $27/month thus far in 2010. San Antonio made the spend the most list at an expenditure of $377/year per average person.

"Now, this will come as no great surprise, but Seattle -- Starbucks world headquarters -- tops the list, at $674 spent per person per year. In Seattle in the wintertime, you drive to work in the dark and come home in the dark, so you need something to keep you from running off the road into Puget Sound. Also not surprisingly, Las Vegas comes in at No. 2, with $391 spent on java in a year. After a long night of dissipation, it's a safe bet you'll need a strong slug of coffee."

Rounding out the Top 10 in yearly expenditure(s) comes :Portland, Ore. ($388); San Antonio, Texas ($377); St. Louis ($376); San Jose, Calif. ($366); Tucson, Ariz. ($362; must be iced coffee); San Francisco ($358), tied with New York; Denver; and Phoenix ($352)."

Forbes Reports Houston Coming Out of Recession

Forbes magazine (http://www.forbes.com)Houston is 4th on the list of top US cities where the recession seems to be easing. Houston, along with nine other metropolitan areas, are best surviving the downturn in part because they specialize in industries that are relatively insulated from economic volatility, Forbes said.

If one state is a poster child for economic recovery, said Forbes, it’s Texas, which is home to four of the 10 cities on the list. Houston was tied with Minneapolis for fourth place. Meanwhile, Austin was tied for first place with Washington, D.C. while Dallas came in third and San Antonio ranked No. 7.

“There’s more to why Austin, Dallas, San Antonio and Houston are faring well than just the state’s energy industry. The tech, government and education industries supplement the oil state’s riches,” Forbes said. “As for housing, cities in Texas didn’t see the same run-up in home prices and rampant speculation that led to the spectacular bubble burst elsewhere in the country.”

James P. Gaines, research economist at the Real Estate Center at Texas A&M University, said, “We didn’t have excessive overbuilding, so we don’t have a big overhang of unsold new homes, and because Texas has among most affordable housing in the country, the demand sustained.” Like Austin and Dallas, Houston is expected to experience a three-year, 7.03 percent rise in jobs. But nowhere are jobs projected to grow more than in San Antonio, where four military bases should help drive its expected 8.32 percent increase.