OC Housing Market, Construction Are on Fire

Walrod said he doesn’t see a recession happening within the next 12 to 18 months.

COSTA MESA, CA—Orange County construction jobs are growing by the thousands, and the market remains significantly short on housing units in a region where recession is “not in the cards” for the near future, Dr. Wallace Walrod told attendees at RealShare Orange County here Thursday. Walrod, chief economic adviser for Orange County Business Council, gave a keynote presentation called “Drivers of Orange County Economic Growth and Future Trends to Watch” at the conference.

Walrod said that the region’s unemployment rate has ticked up a bit during the last two months, rising from 3.1% to 4.2%–due, in part, to some layoffs—and said it was something to look at over the next few months. But, in considering when the next recession might hit, even more than eight years in to this recovery, he said, “I don’t see recession in the cards for the next 12 to 18 months,” adding that recession is often a self-fulfilling prophecy: when consumers fear a recession, they begin to pull back their spending, essentially “creating” a recession. And based on Chapman University’s consumer-sentiment index, about 70% of the Orange County population is feeling a little bit under pressure economically, he said.