The markets of Charlotte and Tampa are home to this year’s GOP and Democratic national conventions, and both metros have weathered through a difficult housing crisis, according to a Trulia blog post.
So did the parties choose correctly when selecting two struggling, yet different economies as their convention backdrops?
Trulia chief economist Jed Kolko notes both are good cities to make jobs and the economy top issues with Charlotte maintaining a 10% unemployment rate and Tampa coming in at 9.4%. The question is whether a high unemployment rate is what an incumbent president wants to highlight when presenting his convention platform?
Housing is a bit different, Kolko says. Charlotte experienced a home price drop of 16%, which is much milder than the 42% peak-to-trough average home price decline experienced in Tampa. Whether a market experiencing so much turmoil was a good place for Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney remains to be seen.
Kolko seems to suggest the market’s selected show no signs of recovery and remain in significant pain.
“To add insult to injury: even though other hard-hit housing markets like Phoenix and Miami have recently seen prices jump by well over 10% in the last year, equally-suffering Tampa hasn’t gotten the same boost,” Kolko said.
Click here to read Kolko’s full article on this year’s convention cities.
