matthestMar 19

Austin’s surge of new housing construction drove down rents

https://www.pew.org/en/research-and-analysis/articles/2026/03/18/austins-surge-of-new-housing-construction-drove-down-rents

Austin’s Surge of New Housing Construction Drove Down Rents

After decades of explosive growth, Austin, Texas, in the 2010s was a victim of its own success. Lured by high-tech jobs and the city’s hip reputation, too many people were competing for too few homes. From 2010 to 2019, rents in Austin increased nearly 93%—more than in any other major American city. And home sale prices increased 82%, more than in any other metro area in Texas.

Show threadpclowes

Its wild how the solution to housing costs is really just:

Build more housing. Keep law and order.

No it doesn’t need to be “affordable”. Yes rent control is a terrible idea.

Just build more housing.

Note: that the US already has plenty of housing and housing costs basically go up in areas of low crime relative to economic opportunity. If you build housing, but allow crime to rise, you have wasted everybody’s time.

Mar 19 at 1:51amWeb
Show threadtsunamifuryMar 19
There is affordable housing all over America. Get it through your head. It’s about nearness to the economic singularity that costs so much not the housing itself.
Show threadbitmasher9Mar 19

What do you mean by "economic singularity"? If your goal is being near economic opportunity then Austin has plenty.

It’s not NYC or SF, but this suggests that those would be more affordable if they just built more housing.

Show threadpibakerMar 19
It is not affordable if it is located somewhere with no job.
Show threadtsunamifuryMar 19
Congrats, you just figured out the point of the statement
Show threadtptacekMar 19
There isn't affordable housing in areas of opportunity. You can easily find cheap housing if you don't care about proximity to jobs or to good school districts.
Show threadtsunamifuryMar 19
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Show threadslgMar 19
This comment is phrased as if the article is confirming these points when it either doesn't mention them or even directly refutes them. First there is no mention of either crime or rent control in the article. But more importantly, it states that "A key piece of Austin’s strategy has been to encourage the construction of affordable housing." So why are you concluding that affordable housing isn't needed?
Show threadterminalshortMar 19
Affordable housing is the only type of housing that will ever be built. Builders aren't so stupid as to build products that their customers can't buy. Government intervention is not needed.
Show threadms_menardiMar 19
And yet, gentrification.
Show threadtriceratopsMar 19
God forbid bad parts of town ever get good.
Show threadKPGv2Mar 19

That's not what gentrification is. Relevant to this article, I lived through the gentrification of large parts of Austin in the early 00s.

What happened was that good housing full of artists and musicians and other self-employed creatives began gentrifying, driving up property values, which drove up property taxes, which became unaffordable to the existing residents (who had owned their homes for a long time). Many (actually, most) of these artists had to sell and leave.

They often left for other cities. But hey at least the good houses everyone liked all got torn down to be replaced by McMansions for the influx of techbros.

Austin still has that slogan, "Keep Austin Weird." It failed. Austin isn't weird anymore. The University of Texas still is responsible for a lot of great stuff about Austin, but huge chunks of the city are just boring these days. There's certainly much less interesting culture happening. It's been airbnbified.

Show threadmmoossMar 19

> good housing full of artists and musicians and other self-employed creatives

It looks like - it might not be what you mean, but it looks like - you're saying 'good housing' is housing that has "artists and musicians and other self-employed creatives", as opposed to poor working people.

Show threadJuniperMesosMar 19

Many artists and self-employed creatives are themselves poor working people - making art is work (and so is marketing it to potential customers), and most artists are not lucky or successful enough to become wealthy doing it.

But yes, I think there is a sense in which people who are driven to create have some kind of ineffable, cultural capital that people without this drive do not have. So a neighborhood that is full of artists is more interesting, and therefore more valuable to spend time in, than one that isn't.

Show threadFarmerPotatoMar 19
See the photo in the above East Side article. In the old neighborhood, people talked to the photographer because the front yards didn't have privacy fences.
Show threadterminalshortMar 19
My heart breaks for those poor people whose houses became worth multiple times what they paid for them. A true tragedy. I would be devastated if my house became so valuable that the property taxes were more than I could afford.
Show threadbombcarMar 19

Even if we don't enact Prop-13-like things to keep property taxes reasonable I'm sure we could get a compromise where your property tax remains stable as long as you deed the appreciation over baseline to the city/county.

Win/win, right?

Show threadtriceratopsMar 19

My interpretation of your comment:

The existing residents (artists) made money by selling their appreciated houses. Those who could afford to remain were now in areas with less crime and poverty.

The new residents spent a ton of money to live in a place they themselves culturally diminished.

We should re-evaluate the winners and losers here.

Show threadFarmerPotatoMar 19

Let's talk about the East Side.

https://www.austinmonthly.com/in-photos-what-gentrification-...

I don't think many home owners got a price for their land that allowed them to buy a similar house elsewhere.

The world is far from an ideal model where what you get is what you deserve.

Note the history of the East Side power plant, which depressed property prices. Ditto, I-35 construction plans. The article says the plant will become a park now. After the new developers locked in purchases.

Show threadcucumber3732842Mar 19

You see this business model everywhere. They buy up all the land around an industrial site, small airport, race track, pig farm that smells bad, etc, etc. Then they and their Karens lobby for rule changes that force that use out or make it non-competitive in the broader market. Then they develop the land.

Nothing will fix it until some case goes up to the supreme court and results in some sort of "they were there first the .gov can piss off" doctrine.

Show threadmmoossMar 19
Good for whom? If it's good for the residents, that's great. If it's bad for the residents, who get driven out, but good for some developers and outside rich people - that's what gentrification is.
Show threadtriceratopsMar 19

Unless all of the housing is owned by non-residents prior to gentrification, some residents always benefit from their neighborhood going upscale. Either through increased home values, allowing them to sell and improve their lives. Or because it's now a more pleasant area to live in.

Even renters in gentrifying areas may profit if housing construction outpaces population growth. Yes, they may have to move, but also the places they move to on their current budget may be nicer - because the people who can afford better have moved too.

Show threadmmoossMar 19

> increased home values, allowing them to sell and improve their lives

That also raises property taxes, making the neighborhood unaffordable and driving them out.

> it's now a more pleasant area to live in.

For new wealthy residents. People who have spent lifetimes there don't want everything to change and have their communities destroyed.

> Yes, they may have to move, but also the places they move to on their current budget may be nicer - because the people who can afford better have moved too.

These are theoretical and very general averages. The actual individuals often do not benefit. Being forced to move is not a mere inconvenience to your theory.

Show threadtriceratopsMar 19

The alternative: new housing doesn't get built. Existing housing - including the "bad" neighborhood that isn't redeveloped for fear of "gentrification" - gets bid up to the moon. People who can't afford rent end up moving anyway and commuting from very far away, if they're lucky. Or they end up on the streets, if they aren't so lucky.

That isn't theoretical. I just described the SF Bay Area.

Show thread7speterMar 19
When people in NYC are driven out of their neighborhoods because of gentrification, they generally move down south. There isn’t some magical part of town that they can afford with their “current budget”
Show threadtriceratopsMar 19

> There isn’t some magical part of town that they can afford with their “current budget”

Literally impossible unless:

1. People are living in multiple houses

2. New construction hasn't kept up with population growth

We're commenting on an article that says the exact same thing.

Show threadmmoossMar 19

> Literally impossible

Economic theory says some things are theoretically impossible, no literally, but economic theory wouldn't say that here:

The local housing market is much more complex than supply and demand, with larger economic factors (e.g., interest rates), very imperfect information (affecting everyone from buyers, to sellers, real estate agents, lenders, etc.), coordination by landlords (e.g., RealPage), non-economic factors such as prejudice (or just a co-op board!), government actions, larger trends, temporary inefficiencies, etc.

Economic theory is useful, but it does not predict or circumscribe the immediate reality of individuals. Life is much more complicated than that.

Show threadtriceratopsMar 19
We're seeing in TFA that this economic theory worked on Austin rents.
Show threadmmoossMar 20

First, I didn't say there is no supply effect; I said it's far from impossible for the effect to make a difference.

Second, many factors are involved in a complex market; you and I don't know how much effect the supply had in this case. That you are interested in that input isn't evidence of its effect.

Show thread7speterMar 19
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Show threadhunterpayneMar 19
Can you guess what the #1 source of wealth increase in the AA community has been over the last 20 years? That's right, grandma's house...guess where she lived.
Show threadbombcarMar 19

This is a huge important part - if gentrification of an AA community occurs in an area where the homes are owned by the residents, it's a great wealth-growing event; generational even.

If the gentrification of an AA community occurs where the residents rent then they capture none of it and are forced out.

Show threadtriceratopsMar 19

Let's assume communities are rated on a scale of 1 to 10. A "gentrified community" goes from being a 3 to being an 8. Renters are forced to move because they can't afford 8/10-rated-community rents, while existing owners profit handsomely. On this we all agree.

Where do the new residents of this now-8/10 community come from? Probably a place that was less than 8/10 - maybe it was 7. So now there's less demand for all the 7s and their rents decrease, allowing residents living in 6s to move there. And so on.

Assuming housing construction in the region has kept up with the population, even the renters who were forced out of the previously 3/10 community will likely find new housing in a 4/10 neighborhood at the same price. Their relationships from the old place were probably disrupted by the move (bad) but they also got better housing for the same money (good).

The key in this is housing construction must be allowed to increase with population.

Show threadbombcarMar 19

Exactly - when things are happening "naturally" for some value of "not artificially constrained" you find that people move over time and what were the luxury dwellings of 20/30/50 years ago are the new "starter homes" of today.

When supply is artificially constrained, the old homes get torn down and replaced with luxurious ones - without increasing dwelling spaces available.

Show threadtriceratopsMar 19

Your comment violates site guidelines. "Assume good faith" https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

What did you hope to do by saying this?

Hacker News Guidelines

Show threadbeepbooptheoryMar 19

What is a better faith interpretation of downplaying gentrification like this? Like what do we talk about when we talk about gentrification if not this? Gp is not even, like, denying the concept, and literally saying that it is good (in a sarcastic way).

It's not "better faith" to construct an entire alternative world for the user's comment to remove it from the actually existing implications of their point. I am not sure what that it is, but it certainly isn't a healthy exchange of ideas.

"I think we should burn down all the forests"; "Oh geeze that sounds like a terrible idea.."; "um it's actually pretty bad faith for you to assume they were talking about forests on Earth and not some bad evil forests that could hypothetically exist somewhere else..." taps the guidelines sign

Show threadtriceratopsMar 19

I refuse the premise that "gentrification" is purely negative. There are benefits and downsides. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47434356

The downsides of not building new housing at all are even worse than "gentrification" and they fall even heavier on the poor. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47434470

Unless all of the housing is owned by non-residents prior to gentrification, som... | Hacker News

Show threadbeepbooptheoryMar 19

I don't want to throw the dictionary at yeah but gentrification is the word we generally use to talk about a downside to maybe a more general effort in urban development. This is really really weird hill to die on.. Just pick another word, I don't think you'd lose the nuance you are trying to inject here. As it stands its just needlessly provocative, a Twitter-hot-take vibe that is generally frowned upon around here.

Also (imo) don't link to yourself like this! Especially when its to just another short comment in the same thread! Why do that??

Show threadtriceratopsMar 19

> don't link to yourself like this... Why do that??

I've been told off (by dang, no less) before for copy-pasting comments. There's no winning it seems.

Show threaddatsci_est_2015Mar 19
There’s nothing good faith to be interpreted from a pithy comment that denies real suffering experienced by real people. If OP wanted to be interpreted in good faith they should’ve written more substance to their comment.
Show threadslgMar 19
I'm not sure if you're intentionally changing the definition of "affordable housing" in an attempt to make the desire for it seem silly or if you genuinely don't know how the term is typically used. But what you're describing is generally referred to as "market-rate housing" and not "affordable housing".
Show threadcuuupidMar 19

Affordable housing = housing that regular people can afford

The only silly thing here is that "low income housing" got rebranded as "affordable housing" and absolutely everything else got rebranded as "luxury homes" for political reasons.

"Market-rate housing" is even sillier given that it is literally the opposite of what "affordable housing" policies dictate

Show threadslgMar 19
I'm not going to debate what the definitions should be, I'll just say I don't think it is productive to join an existing conversation using terms with different definitions than everyone else uses. Defining all housing as inherently "affordable" makes the term meaningless and even if you disagree with the motivations behind the desire for "affordable housing", at least the term has meaning in the way it's typically used.
Show threadcuuupidMar 19

You are quite literally debating what the definition should be, because this is _not_ the existing definition of affordable housing, it is legally what OP is saying. "Affordable housing" is just when the household spends <= 30% of gross income on housing related costs. This is the definition used by the HUD and the same definition applied in policymaking.

What >you< are referring to and what it is conflated with by progressive policymakers is "low income housing" which imposes an AMI based restriction on the resident's income. This in turn means that 30% of their income is much lower and restricts the sticker price of the home.

In recent years, most 'affordable housing' policy has been advanced by progressives, who use that term for marketing purposes, whereas the actual policy primarily relates to 'low income housing' or even 'very low income housing.' This does not mean 'affordable housing' = 'low income housing', it just means the term 'affordable housing' is used in the title and the actual measures advanced are related to AMI and 'low income housing.'

Show threadslgMar 19
Those definitions aren't in conflict. The "progressive" definition is just the applied version of the "HUD" definition scaled to local income levels.
Show threadcuuupidMar 19

There is no "progressive" definition, income level is not at all part of the definition. Per the universal legal definition of 'affordable housing,' if a home costs $1B but is occupied by Elon Musk, it would still be affordable because it is less than 30% of his gross income.

When you are dealing with income levels it is universally called 'low income housing,' and the HUD definition is already scaled to local income levels, the 'A' in AMI stands for 'Area.'

You are conflating marketing ('we need more affordable housing!') with policy ('low income housing')

Show threadslgMar 19

> There is no "progressive" definition

You seemed to disagree with that in your prior post, but I’m glad we can now agree that there is no point debating this then.

Show threadcuuupidMar 19
It's amazing how much of leftist discourse is just them pretending not to understand things, thus making discourse impossible
Show threadjrflowersMar 19
I like this reasoning. If there exists a person or organization that can afford to buy a thing then it is an affordable thing. Now this might sound like a tautology but that’s only because it is
Show threadrootusrootusMar 19

Just up the street from me, a local builder is trying a tactic I have not seen before (in our area, at least). They are building out a new neighborhood, but it is quite diverse -- one end is dominated by duplexes in the 500K range and some smaller single family homes. The other end has larger, nicer homes priced at 2M or a little over. All in the span of a quarter mile or so.

They think it will work. I will be interested to see how it plays out.

Show threadjychangMar 19

The comment is phrased in the greater context of the public discussion about housing, in general. Not the specific information of the article.

You know, like how a discussion about war might reference the various recent wars that everyone knows about; it's not limited to just the content of the article.

Show threadslgMar 19
But it didn't reference anything, it stated political opinions like they were confirmed facts, provided zero evidence to support those assertions, and completely ignored the ways in which the article provides counterevidence.
Show threadmanlymuppetMar 19

They aren't saying affordable housing isn't needed. Just that the method for making housing affordable shouldn't be trying to make the current housing supply cheaper.

And from this is where you get "rent-control is a terrible idea". Essentially: trying to artificially drive down housing prices in any way is generally inadvisable if you can just build more housing.

Sure that's technically an opinion, but it's one based in facts, and it certainly doesn't have "zero evidence".

https://www.brookings.edu/articles/what-does-economic-eviden...

What does economic evidence tell us about the effects of rent control?

Rebecca Diamond discusses short term and long term effects of rent control. In the long run, the costs outweigh the benefits.

Brookings
Show threadCapricorn2481Mar 19
That's a pretty generous interpretation that requires you to believe rent control and building housing are diametrically opposed to each other.
Show threadhunterpayneMar 19
rent control dramatically decreases the incentives to build and in many cases makes it impossible (read uneconomic) to do so
Show threadaiisjustanifMar 20

Blanket statements like this is the point of many of the above replies, it’s not a true statement with evidence. All rent control does not reduce the number of rentals, “more restrictive rent control”[1] [2] does. These nuances are important in the conversation.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S105113772...

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4904928

Show threadpclowesMar 19

In this case affordable housing nets out as a way to overcome policy barriers to market rate housing. So it actually makes the market freer.

Many other implementations of affordable housing further raise the barrier and thus even if any is built it doesn’t help widespread housing affordability issues.

Rent control is just another flavor of housing affordability policy that often (always?) backfires.

Crime, social peace, and economic opportunity are very linked. A lot of house prices in urban areas are wildly distributed and often the increase cost is to buy distance and safety (often just a couple blocks) from high crime areas.

Show threadslgMar 19

>In this case affordable housing nets out as a way to overcome policy barriers to market rate housing. So it actually makes the market freer.

>Many other implementations of affordable housing further raise the barrier and thus even if any is built it doesn’t help widespread housing affordability issues.

Can you be specific with what you mean here? Because this reads like a no true Scotsman argument that it doesn't count as "affordable housing" if it works. The article discusses the programs encouraging income-restricted units which seems like a classic affordable housing program. What specifically do you think is different in this case?

Show threadpclowesMar 19

Affordable housing in a vacuum disincentivizes development and results in worse affordability.

Affordable housing used as an incentive or way to overcome other barriers to housing (density limits, height limits, zoning etc) that makes the market more “free” net is will produce more development.

You don’t need it for development but it can be used effectively depending on other policies. As with all things it depends on what policy makers are optimizing for. These are all tradeoffs. But affordable by itself all else equal limits developer upside and incentives less development meaning less supply and higher prices.

Show threadslgMar 19

>Affordable housing used as an incentive or way to overcome other barriers to housing (density limits, height limits, zoning etc)

I'm not sure what type of affordable housing program doesn't meet this definition. They are almost always tied to incentives for developers, including sometimes in the form of a removal of other housing restrictions. Or are you specifically objecting to financial assistance on the renter/buyer side? Because I assumed the “it” in “it doesn’t need to be “affordable”” was referencing the new development.

Show threadpclowesMar 19

See San Francisco. Also generally anywhere else where prices are rising and developers can’t develop and yet there are a lot of affordable housing policies. CA as a whole has mismanaged this so badly they have a net migration outflow.

Also removing other housing restrictions that ostensibly were put in there by constituents is a valid reason for constituents to oppose AH. They get called NIMBYs for this but if the local populace wanted more high density development then the density limits wouldnt be there to be excepted by AH