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 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 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 threadcucumber3732842

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.

Mar 19 at 10:38amWeb