EEDA Economic Preview

By: J. David Chapman//February 23, 2023

Last week, the Edmond Economic Development Authority held its annual Economic Preview at the Edmond Conference Center. The sold-out crowd was given sector-specific regional and local real estate market forecasts by experts.

Janet Yowell, EEDA executive director, gave an introduction and review of 2022 economic performance in the city of Edmond. From sales tax to number of students in the district, growth was the common theme. Real estate expert Jim Parrack, Price Edwards & Co. spoke about the retail sector. Jim emphasized that we are at a place we have never been before in the market. He said in retail, it comes down to how much money people have and if they are willing to part with it. Positively, we have wage growth, increasing personal savings, and increased population growth. On the negative side, we are experiencing inflation and the fear of recession. We have good economic numbers, but the talk about recession is affecting consumer sentiment. The 3% growth we are seeing in retail is somewhat uneven, with some of those in the sector not experiencing the increase, as evidenced by the closing of several national chains in the area.

Covering the multifamily sector was the managing director of Capstone Cos., William Forrest. Multifamily has been the “darling” for several years, outperforming the other sectors. The Oklahoma City metro area had $902 million in multifamily sales and rent growth of 8.6%. Edmond is becoming a “rent-by-choice” community and has seen rents increase 10.6% with a 95% occupancy rate. William expects this growth in rents to slow and level out at 3% to 4% rent increases going forward.

Chris Anderson, managing partner with the Grant Group, was on hand to speak about downtown Edmond. Chris expressed that the downtown Edmond community was excited to see the new multifamily projects coming out of the ground to contribute sales to the many retail establishments that have recently opened. He commented on growing pains with construction, overhead power lines, and trash container requirements in the downtown area.

The last panelist was Brian Peterson, residential Realtor at ReMax at Home. Brian stressed that the market in Edmond is still strong, but we are seeing corrections from the madness that the pandemic created in home sales. We still have half the housing inventory for sale that we had prior to the pandemic creating a supply-side issue.

J. David Chapman is professor of finance and real estate at the University of Central Oklahoma.