Friday, February 19, 2010

America's Best Housing Market: Pittsburgh

The never-ending lists from Forbes are not all that popular in the Rust Belt. Pittsburgh is on top of a recent one concerning best housing markets, but it comes off as a backhanded compliment:

"Manufacturing cities like Pittsburgh have suffered so much for the last two, three, four years that there’s still a population base in that region, and now those areas are sort of attractive," says James P. Gaines, research economist at the Real Estate Center at Texas A&M University. "Home prices are so low, some service-level jobs can be created, so it's not surprising perhaps that there's been a revitalization of some of those communities."

I read the article a few times to make sure I understood the analysis. It's bogus. Gaines has no idea what is going on in Pittsburgh. Neither does Forbes.

With positive publicity like this, who needs a smear campaign?

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