Web Posted: 12/19/2005 12:00 AM CST

San Antonio Express-News

Just in case you haven’t counted, you have six more shopping days until Christmas. Put it in gear, Santa. This year, with The Shops of La Cantera, San Antonio is basking in a new era of service and selection.

I have to admit that I hadn’t had a chance to visit The Shops until very recently. I’ve heard lots of raves about luxury newcomers Nordstrom, Neiman Marcus and Tiffany & Co. that the shopping center has introduced to our market.

On the surface, the city’s ascension in the retail world would appear to serve mainly the fashion-savvy, but our community is reaping many more benefits. Moving up in the retail world is increasing the number of shopping tourists, meeting pent-up demand from locals, expanding charitable fundraising opportunities, and further validating that our city is coming of age economically.

If you’re like most shoppers, it takes more than steep discounts to get you into a store. According to a survey by the National Retail Federation, 85 percent of consumers spend and shop more at retailers who provide good service. According to the Washington, D.C.-based organization, Nordstrom ranked at the top of customer service for department stores.

“We try to hire nice, enthusiastic, hard-working people who love fashion,” said the retailer’s spokesperson, Deniz Anders. Nordstrom’s employee handbook consists of one card with these words: “Use good judgment in all situations.” Now there’s something to strive for.

Shoppers wanting customized attention can also visit Neiman Marcus, where the salespeople are trained to be able to guide a customer through the entire store, if needed. In addition, the store offers a complimentary personal shopping service.

“We try to make our service as personal as possible,” said the retailer’s spokesperson, Emily Spicer. “Our philosophy is really based on the relationship that we have with our customer.”

Service is important, but at this time of year many of us are looking for dazzling and exclusive attire for Christmas and New Year’s parties. Priscilla Hale, who runs a local image consulting and personal shopping business, says Nordstrom and Neiman Marcus offer this market unprecedented choices of gala gowns, party clothes and designer menswear.

The wider selection of designers enables her to meet all of her clients’ fashion needs here in San Antonio. “Those dollars are staying here rather than going to Houston and Austin,” she says.

For years, San Antonio has relied on small boutiques in the Alamo Heights area, as well as stores at North Star Mall and the Alamo Quarry Market to supply its luxury needs. The market seems to have enough room for the new and more established retailers.

Mollie Calvert, senior marketing manager at North Star and The Shops, says both centers are 98 percent leased and that sales at North Star have fallen only slightly since The Shops opened in September.

The success of North Star, including the Mexican nationals who make up 30 percent of its market, partly paved the way for The Shops, Calvert says. Both properties are owned and managed by Chicago-based General Growth Properties Inc., and they’re actually vying for some of the same dollars.

“We have now split the pie between the two shopping centers,” Calvert says.

Still, North Star tenants are by no means taking a back seat to the new competition. Saks Fifth Avenue and Dillard’s recently completed renovations at North Star, and the mall is undergoing a multimillion-dollar renovation. And many of the mall’s smaller tenants are aggressively marketing themselves through direct mail pieces.

People will probably continue to do most of their shopping near where they live, but The Shops is generating healthy competition that can affect everyone. Department and boutique stores alike will have to step up in service and selection to stay relevant to their shoppers.

Nordstrom and Neiman Marcus won’t give specifics, but they report they’re pleased with the performance of their San Antonio stores. And both are committed to supporting local charities.

Nordstrom coupled a fundraising opening gala with a runway fashion show and raised more than $200,000 for the Junior League of San Antonio, the Cancer Therapy & Research Center and the San Antonio Public Library Foundation. The opening gala thrown by Neiman Marcus raised $52,280 each for Artpace San Antonio, the Witte Museum and the San Antonio Museum of Art.

New competition is also good for stepping up the caliber of charitable events. Right before The Shops opened, I was very excited to attend the Chanel style show hosted by North Star’s Saks Fifth Avenue. The event benefited the San Antonio Children’s Museum. Boy, was it chichi?!

Emceed by Tracy Wolff, the New York-style runway show was complete with exciting lights and sound, world-class models and impressive clothes. I was particularly glad to see that the hemlines were short. There’s an old saying that if hemlines are going up, so are the financial markets.

The more than 35 new stores brought to the city by The Shops signals one more way that our city is being discovered by outsiders. Toyota, Washington Mutual and the PGA Tour have all decided that San Antonio is a great place to do business. New corporate citizens, shopping tourists, an upscale housing boom and sophisticated locals all confirm that the city can support shopping at its best.

Hang on to your hats and wallets, you lucky San Antonians, and Happy Holidays.

Web Posted: 12/02/2005 12:00 AM CST

San Antonio Express-News

Average U.S. home prices jumped a strong 12.02 percent from the third quarter of 2004 to the same period this year, but increases in San Antonio and Texas lagged far behind, federal regulators reported Thursday.

Texas, perennially one of the slowest states in house appreciation, ranked 46th in the report and well below the national average with a 5.32 percent appreciation rate for the 12-month period. San Antonio’s housing market performed better than most of the state, with a 7.27 percent annual growth.

The figures released by the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight, the agency that oversees the big mortgage- finance companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, were the latest sign of a gradual cooling of the red-hot housing market.

The previous quarter’s 13.4 percent gain was the biggest in 25 years. And the Commerce Department reported Tuesday that sales of new homes jumped to an all-time high in October, in what could be a final spurt from a housing market that is expected to slow after five record-breaking years.

Rates of increase in home prices in the third quarter “were extremely strong, although some deceleration can be seen in a number of the faster-appreciating markets,” Patrick Lawler, chief economist for the federal housing office, said in a statement issued with the report. “Price momentum in the Pacific and New England states, in particular, has pulled back.”

In Texas, San Antonio was ranked behind only El Paso, the best-performing metropolitan statistical area in the state. The Alamo City ranked as the 149th metropolitan statistical area in the nation.

The report ranked only the country’s largest urban areas, and several South Texas housing markets performed better than San Antonio. Victoria showed a 10.53 percent appreciation rate, Corpus Christi was 8.47 percent and Brownsville-Harlingen was 7.67 percent.

The report also noted that the gulf states could see significant price increases over the next several quarters by an influx of people displaced by Hurricane Katrina.

Refinanced properties, the federal housing office emphasized, helped push up the national appreciation rate. While the overall average was 12.02 percent, a purchase-only index showed a rise of 10.95 percent.

Industry analysts expect refinanced properties will be less of a factor in the coming quarters. The Mortgage Bankers Association notes that refinancings were a 60 percent share of mortgage originations in the first quarter of 2004, but that fell steadily to a 44 percent share in the third quarter of 2005. The share of mortgage originations that will be from refinances are forecast to be in the 33 percent to 37 percent range through 2006, the Mortgage Bankers Association said.

Looking at the national average, house prices grew far more rapidly over the last year than prices of other goods and services included in the Consumer Price Index — 12 percent versus 4.5 percent.

The federal report, based on data from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac on repeat sales and refinancings of single-family homes, also found that:

Growth in home prices in Arizona continues to accelerate, with a one-year rate of increase of 30 percent — the largest of any state by a wide margin.

Florida took the No. 2 spot, with a one-year rate of increase of 25 percent. Eleven of the 20 priciest metropolitan areas for homes nationwide are in the state.

Nevada’s one-year appreciation rate dropped by more than 10 percentage points, from 28.6 percent to 17.6 percent. For the first time since the fourth quarter of 2003, the top 20 metropolitan areas do not include any Nevada cities.

The Commerce Department report for October said that while the median, or midpoint, price of a new home rose to $231,300, that was up just 0.9 percent from the median price in October 2004 and far below the double-digit annual price gains that sellers had been enjoying.