Oklahoma City didn't receive the ‘recession' memo
Oklahoma City didn't receive the 'recession' memo

By Richard Mize

Published: May 3, 2008

Nothing ever hit my e-mail as fast as this week's Forbes.com's story calling Oklahoma City the most recession-proof city in the country.

Individual builders, mortgage lenders, Realtors and trade groups made dang sure to get it in front of me.

And we at The Oklahoman made dang sure to get the good news out, again, plus explanation and reaction from housing, energy, agriculture and other sectors that are contributing to our good times.

If you missed the news, you must be dead. Allow me to be your, um, personal medium.

Forbes.com reported: "Take Oklahoma City, Okla. With falling unemployment, one of the country's strongest housing markets, and solid growth in agriculture, energy and manufacturing, it looks best positioned among the nation's largest metropolitan areas to ride out the current crisis.”

Forbes.com continued: "Did someone say something about a recession? ... Oklahoma City might not have received the recession memo. ... Booming valuations of Oklahoma City's largest companies, like Devon Energy and Chesapeake Energy, suggest the energy sector is the right place to be.”

And that's why the housing market, in Oklahoma, is the right place to be.

Take home values. Citing figures from the National Association of Realtors, Forbes.com reported that the median home price here increased 8.2 percent from the fourth quarter of 2006 to the fourth quarter of 2007.

Not news. But now maybe people will take seriously those of us who have worked to blow away scary national headlines with the ammunition of actual local statistics.

We can hope.

We're hoarse, those of us who've been hollering "NOT HERE!” after every bad-news national story, and "LOOK HERE!” while waving sheets of local numbers every time somebody rolls out some more dismal data on the "national housing market” when no such dang thing exists.

Look down the street. Look across town. That's the real estate market. That's what "local, local, local” means. And while sales have slowed at the top end and the low end of the market, in the middle where most of us live homes are still moving and prices are still firm.

Caleb McCaleb, immediate past president of the Central Oklahoma Home Builders Association, told me that the Forbes.com story reported the kinds of things he's been hearing about Oklahoma City from the national home-building industry.

"I just came home from Washington D.C., this past weekend on a trip to the National Association of Home Builders. This article reaffirms what (an association economist) described for the Oklahoma City market,” he said. "The other factors that the economist stressed was how low our exposure has been to the subprime mortgage debacle and investor foreclosure crisis.

"We were educated on boom-and-bust cycles in the 1980s, and this market has been cautious ever since. We just need to keep our eyes on the ball and focus on the game.”

Amen.

Dawn Kennedy, executive officer for the Oklahoma City Metro Association of Realtors, said Realtors could take some of the credit for Oklahoma City being "recession-proof.”

"The association's commitment to education has a direct impact on the knowledge and professionalism of its members. Our members are educated professionals that have avoided the pitfalls of an overheated market and in doing so have protected the economy and home values of Oklahoma City residents,” she said.

Fair assessment. Lots of Realtors who got in while the getting was good are long gone because they couldn't cut it in a normal market such as we have now in Oklahoma City.

Lender Scott Senner with First Commercial Bank said there are some negatives in our market but they have to do with national credit sources, not local lending and values.

"The only consistent negative issue that I have been seeing is that lower-credit-score borrowers are not able to get financing right now,” he said.

That's a negative for some borrowers, but healthy for a market that wants to stay strong.

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