Houston Could Add 80,000 Jobs in 2013

So many jobs are coming to Houston top oil companies from around the world are building new office spaces to accommodate their new employees. In fact, banks are loaning money to companies even if the developers do not have a tenant.

Texas’s economy is growing and grew 4.8% last year. They added 100,000 jobs and Houston alone could add 80,000 this year. Real estate firm CBRE Group, Inc. said there are 56 office buildings under construction in and around Houston. These buildings total at least 11 million square feet. Not only are they providing jobs for their employees, but they are building the economy in the area. An area called Springwoods Village has room for up to 5,000 houses and apartments and it is near an Exxon campus. The campus is 400-acres with 20 buildings with room for 10,000 employees.

BP is building a three-story building to speed up their search for oil and gas around the world. Other companies with buildings under construction are BHP Billiton Petroleum, Anadarko Petroleum Corp, Royal Dutch Shell and Chevron.

The demand is so high in Houston there are many buildings going up as specs. Principal Real Estate Investors and Trammell Crow Co built one with a loan of $100 million even though they did not have a tenant. ConocoPhilips signed a lease for the entire building within four months and construction has not even started.

This boom is not new to Houston and experts are cautioning the developers not to overbuild. Between 1980-1986 there was a bigger boom and developers built over 88.9 million square feet in Houston, but the economy crashed when oil prices went too low. It took Houston almost two decades to fully recover from that crash.