State economy looking ROSIER...

From the Arizona Republic. Reports that Arizona's economy continues to expand, with the strongest growth led by the state's producers, according to a report by the W.P. Carey School of Business at ASU. The report uses six subindexes to measure conditions: employment, production, new orders, purchases, purchased-materials inventory level and delivery times from suppliers. Dawn McLaren, a research economist with the Economic Outlook Center at ASU, says there are key areas to watch. "A lot of our economy hinges on the housing market, including job growth. We need to watch out for changes in the housing market," she said. "Investors from California drove the market up for a while. There was a lot of velocity in the market, with houses turning over quickly." When things slow, investors start moving into other parts of the country or other sectors, which could cause problems for Arizona. And as investors move out, prices drop. "With real estate, what happens is the length of time to sell gets longer, then people get nervous about the length of time, so they drop their prices," McLaren said.

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