Thanks to the generosity of Windermere agents and the community, the Windermere Foundation collected over $1,537,000 in donations through the third quarter of 2017. This is an increase of nine percent compared to this time last year! Individual contributions and fundraisers accounted for 62 percent of the donations, while 38 percent came from donations through Windermere agent commissions.

The counties covered by this report—Los Angeles, San Diego, San Bernardino, Orange, and Riverside—added 108,500 new jobs between August 2016 and August 2017. As a result, the unemployment rate dropped from 5.5% to 5.3%. As noted in last quarter’s report, employment growth in the Southern California market continues to taper, but the economy is still expanding and this will certainly continue.

Employment in the Las Vegas metropolitan area continues to moderate from the substantial growth of the past few years, but the region still experienced impressive annual employment growth of 3%. The market has added 28,400 new jobs over the past 12 months. With this growth in employment, the unemployment rate came in at 5.2%.

The Washington State economy added 79,600 new jobs over the past 12 months—an impressive growth rate of 2.4% , and well above the national growth rate of 1.2%. However, as we anticipated in last quarter’s report, we continue to see a modest slowdown in the growth rate as the state grows closer to full employment.