State of the Economy in El Paso

The El Paso Chamber of Commerce hosted an event this morning at the Univ of Texas at El Paso called State of the El Paso Economy.

It was a two hour session and a question and answer period followed. The speakers were from the local sector and spoke on everything from working in Juarez to the local real estate news.

The speakers were: Allan Russel with the Maquila Industry in Juarez and he spoke about how important it is to keep that industry strong and he also spoke about the violence in Juarez, Mexico.

Dana Vogelmeier-with State Farm and how call centers worked and how they were hiring ( showing that jobs are still available in El Paso).

Dan Olivas(my husband) spoke about the local real estate market and why it is the best time to buy in El Paso and why our home prices are not falling but remaining stable.

Harold Hann from Rocky Mountain Mortgage spoke about local lending and how although it takes a more qualified buyer than in the past and that his company services most of their loans that their foreclosure rate was less than 3%.

Bob Ayoub and Adam Frank spoke about the commercial real estate market and how they have been fairly busy and renting up some of the commercial business spaces that have become vacant.

Larry Patton with Bank of the West spoke about local banking and what is going on there.

The questions were answered by various professor from UTEP and even included a person from the Federal Reserve.

I think that everyone who attended went away with a positive note on the El Paso Economy.