The Week in Review
…..your Wilmington Connection
September 13, 2008
Wilmington has been warm and windy this week with some cooler evenings. But the feel of summer is still here. Lets have a look what has been going on in the Port City.
Port City at No. 6 in best-performing cities list
Last year, Wilmington made the No. 2 spot on the Milken Institute/Greenstreet Real Estate Partners’ 2008 best-performing cities list, with a nod toward its role as a port.
This year No. 2 goes to Raleigh-Cary as strong technology and global trade centers influenced the top 10 list. Which is only 1 hour and a half from Wilmington.
Wilmington still was up there, though, at No. 6, while Provo-Orem, Utah, led the pack.
None of America’s 10 largest cities made the list this year as limited room for expansion hurt their ability to compete with faster-growing regions, especially in the South and West.
The index ranks U.S. metros based on their ability to create and sustain jobs. It includes five- and one-year measurements of employment and salary growth, the organizations said.
The national decline in the housing and construction markets pushed some past performers significantly lower in ranking, including the Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario area of California and metro Phoenix. But energy center Houston became the top performer among the 10 largest cities at 16th on the list and Dallas rose to 23rd.
El Paso, Texas, was the most improved city, moving from 122nd to 37th, the survey found.
The Milken Institute, based in Santa Monica, Calif., describes itself as a nonprofit, independent economic think tank. Greenstreet Real Estate Partners is an investment and asset management company.
Federal Mortgage Success stories
So far, these government-linked lenders — including other, smaller Maes and Macs — have come through the credit crisis largely unscathed. Some of them, in fact, are even prospering.
The Federal Agricultural Mortgage Corporation, or Farmer Mac, for example, has been on a roll lately. Its shares have soared 153 percent this year, and its profit is up. Chartered by the federal government in 1988, Farmer Mac buys mortgages on farmland from agricultural lenders and then sells instruments backed by those loans. The company is thriving because the price of crops — and farmland — has been rising.
The Government National Mortgage Association, or Ginnie Mae, meantime, has also come through the last year without the credit problems that have brought Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to their knees. Fully owned by the federal government, Ginnie Mae provides guarantees on mortgage-backed securities backed by federally insured or guaranteed loans. Earlier this year, Ginnie Mae’s sales of new government-guaranteed debt soared to the highest point since 2003, as the market for other mortgage-linked debt collapsed.
Southport aldermen OK annexation of 93 acres
But the 93 acres the city intends to annex is much different than the large swath officials had originally hoped to grab.
The board voted 5-1, with Alderman Nelson Adams dissenting, to approve a resolution of intent to annex land along North Atlantic Avenue, Jabbertown Road and across the Progress Energy cooling canal.
But this intent goes nowhere near the Long Beach Road-N.C. 211 intersection the city had hoped to take in. Oak Island beat Southport to the table in June by passing its resolution of intent first, giving it exclusive rights to land both communities were eyeing.
Oak Island is in the process of annexing land along Long Beach Road to the N.C. 211 intersection.
Southport’s original swath went past Sunny Point to the north and almost to St. James to the west. Both communities were vying for land near the Long Beach Road intersection, which contains two large shopping centers and a Lowe’s Home Improvement store.
Oak Island’s quick move forced Southport to take its annexation in a different direction, which includes 11 parcels along Jabbertown Road.
Adams argued the board originally agreed on a different direction and should have stuck to it.
……...until next week in The Week in Review
Tina
