Mays Business Online

Charles Gilliland ’83, a research economist with the Texas Real Estate Center at Texas A&M University’s Mays Business School, has been appointed to the Helen and O.N. Mitchell Fellowship in Real Estate. As a researcher with the center since 1977, Gilliland has dedicated 32 years to the study of the Texas real estate market, as well as to the teaching of related subjects in the business school.

ARGUS Software, Inc., a global company specializing in commercial real estate software, recently gave a gift-in-kind worth $200,000 to Mays Business School at Texas A&M University. The gift provided 50 copies of their ARGUS Valuation DSC software, which students will be able to use in a campus computer lab.

National headlines like these have got Americans concerned, but the researchers at the Texas Real Estate Center say not to worry: the Texas real estate market is doing just fine.

“Some of the crazy things happening other places in the country, like California, just aren’t happening here,” says James Gaines, research economist for the center. In fact, after reviewing statistical models and projections, Gaines says Texas should be preparing for an economic explosion, not a recession.

With the economy in recession, and the sub-prime mortgage crisis threatening the real estate industry, many are wondering: is the Texas real estate economy tied to the slide in the market across the U.S. or is it insulated from it? For the hot real estate markets in Texas, what can be done to keep them that way? These are some of the timely topics to be discussed at the annual Texas Development Summit, a conference hosted by the Real Estate Center on February 4, 2008 in Houston.