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 threadpclowesMar 19

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.

Show threadestearumMar 19

New construction has already decelerated in Austin due to falling prices, which compresses already-near-zero margin on real estate development.

So yes, it really is "just build more housing." The problem is: why would you build more housing as prices fall?

Show threadpinkmuffinereMar 19
I'm confused by this objection, if you draw a stereotypical supply and demand curve, you can see how prices settle to an equilibrium point. Of course reality has more complications, but I think your objection is 95% answered by a supply and demand curve. You keep building houses when it is profitable. You stop when it is not. This naturally keeps everything in balance.
Show threadmichaelmroseMar 19

If a minority has most of the wealth then the equilibrium supply may include a lot of supply of second homes, very large homes on large plots for the rich, properties sold at a premium based on how much they can extract from renters, and even investment properties occupied by nobody whilst still having insufficient small basic homes and dense housing.

Capital that could be invested in better serving the bottom half has to compete not only with the use of those resources to further enrich the rich but other investment opportunities.

Show threadroenxi

There's a couple of "ifs" there and the scenario seems implausible. If I look at the prime real estate in a city it tends to be a lot of skyscrapers rather than very large homes (with occasional exceptions like say a Buckingham Palace). But it looks like the economic equilibrium is lots of cheaper apartments rather than large homes for rich people.

> ... and even investment properties occupied by nobody ...

Not much of an investment. Something is wrong if that is happening, probably manifesting as a lack of supply. Otherwise what is the point of an "asset" that doesn't generate income, degrades over time and could easily be rented out at a profit rather than sitting unused?

Whatever scenario there is where it makes sense to have an empty property, assuming a sane policy backdrop, it'd always be better for the owner do what they were going to do anyway but also rent it out.

Mar 19 at 8:18amWeb
Show threadzozbot234Mar 19

People don't want to rent those homes out because once you're doing so it's difficult to evict a long-term tenant. You just lose out a lot on flexibility - even if you try and manage that risk by leasing out housing e.g. on a yearly basis, landlord-tenant law often overrides that since there are strong ethical reasons for not evicting someone who has since come to treat that rental space as their home.

Short term rentals are better on that score: no one sensible forms a long-term expectation that they're going to live in an Airbnb that they've rented for a few days. (If you think short-term rentals are "bad" for the long-term market or have negative side-effects on the neighborhood, then tax them to manage that tradeoff. But banning them altogether is unconscionable and just leads to houses sitting empty and unused.)

Show threadgraemepMar 19

There are some places in the UK (mostly new developments in London) that have a significant number of deliberately empty investment properties despite the law here making it easy to evict tenants. They are not being used for short term rentals either.

Although the easiest route (no-fault eviction) is being abolished soon, wanting to sell a property remains a valid reason to evict.

Some people just buy property as a speculative investment.

I do not think it is the main cause of shortages in London - that is people buying holiday homes, which are often large and centrally located. London provides a lot (restaurants, nightclubs, gambling, prostitution, financial services...) that attracts people with a lot of money to spend from all over the world.

Show threadzozbot234Mar 19

> despite the law here making it easy to evict tenants

"Easy" is relative. "Evicting" an airbnb'er once the term is up will always be orders of magnitude easier than kicking out a long-term tenant who regards that as their actual home. There's not even anything necessarily wrong with this! The easiest way to address the issue is literally to slash any remaining red-tape that's making things difficult for those who would want to AirBnb these properties out, while managing the resulting side-effects (including the plausible effect on the long-term rentals market) by levying a special fee if necessary.

As a bonus, easy AirBnb rental provides an alternative for some who might otherwise want a permanent holiday home.

Show threadmichaelmroseMar 19
If we don't have an excess of housing why should we allow ANYONE even one single property to serve as an unlicensed hotel. If we tax un-lived in property extremely punitively nobody will hold them at all and it should soon be sold or rented out.
Show threadzozbot234Mar 19
I'm fine with taxing both long-term vacant properties and AirBnb at fairly high rates, since both have negative effects on the surrounding neighborhood - the latter to a markedly less extent than the former, of course.
Show threadmichaelmroseMar 19
The purpose of housing is not to provide an investment vehicle nor should we optimize for this. Airbnb should just regulated out of existence in most urban markets because we are chronically low on housing and the city doesn't need short term rentals at all.
Show threadzozbot234Mar 19
The purpose of most real estate is to provide shelter for people, not to sit empty and unused. That's exactly what AirBnb allows to those who are only willing to rent short term (because it's their vacation home and they want to be able to use it).
Show threadFuriouslyAdriftMar 19

You are referring to properties held by the already rich (only the rich can afford 'vacation homes').

If they can't afford a 'vacation home' without short term rentals then it should be sold and provide housing year-round and build equity for a new homeowner.

Show threadmichaelmroseMar 19

Housing someone provides a fundamentally different kind of value than offering a second home or short-term stay. A home meets an essential social need, while vacation homes and similar uses provide far less public benefit. On that scale, the social value of housing a person is vastly greater than the value of adding another short-term rental bed.

That does not mean hotels would stop being built, because developers and hotel operators are optimizing for a different kind of value. But it is more than enough reason to oppose turning even a single home into a de facto short-term hotel.

The reality is not simply that people are monetizing unused space. The ability to rent homes short term encourages people to buy more second homes than they otherwise would, because the income offsets the cost. It also encourages investment in housing that would otherwise remain in the long-term market, since owners know unused time can be monetized. Some buyers purchase properties specifically to operate them as Airbnbs, and many landlords convert homes that once served monthly or yearly tenants into short-term rentals because they can charge more, adjust rates freely, and often earn more overall.