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 threadadrianNMar 19
There is the possibility that the government builds housing, since the government doesn't have to care about direct profits and can include the overall economic effects of affordable housing in its calculations. We don't expect much direct profits from roads either, but we keep building more and more of them.
Show threadrayinerMar 19
That only makes sense if there is a positive externality from housing. Is there?
Show threaddonkeybeerMar 19
Why shouldn't housing, like any other goods, be as cheap as possible for as high quality as possible?
Show threadpembrookMar 19

Because "cheap" government housing has never been "high quality" in the history of the world. Those two properties are antithetical.

Humans don't have a ton of preferences for the electricity they consume or the water they drink, just that it exists. It's a commodity, so a good task for government. Housing is not an undifferentiated commodity and is subject to extreme variances in preference. Markets do differentiation and preference matching infinitely better.

Hence why Government housing always takes the form of a utilitarian blight on the community with giant towers of tiny apartments with tiny windows...doesn't matter if its communist Russia or the richest capitalist city on earth (NYC), all government housing results in the same outcome.

Assuming someone will chime in with some "halo" government housing project in the nordics that represents like 0.01% of the government stock there but socialists will use as propaganda. However, it's important to remember these are not cherry picked examples, they are median examples:

[1] NYC government housing: https://www.brickunderground.com/sites/default/files/styles/...

[2] Russian government housing: https://i.redd.it/twz37r739xse1.jpeg

Show threadestearum
Pretty sure France and Singapore both have quite successful and high quality public housing projects.
Mar 19 at 11:03amWeb
Show threadpembrookMar 19

France has similar issues as the US housing projects from the 70s (creating ghettos), these are not places that people choose to live. And yes, all governments put up halo projects that you see in the press that do not represent the average, please link me to them claiming I'm wrong, and I will say yes, this halo project designed by a famous architecture firm does look nice! Now show me the median late-1970s constructed French public apartment.

Singapore is different because they eliminated the "cheap" part. Singaporean HDB flats are expensive, have extremely long wait times (you're stuck for life when one comes up), while still being super tiny. Fertility rates are 0.87 there (replacement rate is 2.1). The domestic population is literally disappearing itself. I'm sure highly regulated tiny housing stock and development policy has no influence on family size though...

Show threaddonkeybeerMar 19
The floor space and the proximity to neighbors are perfectly valid reasons to not prefer apartments. Calling them a "blight" is bs, unless you had in mind as your ideal something like historic parts of London because rows of identical mansions in a suburb looks to me no different than rows of vertically stacked apartment blocks. They are both clean, geometric and "industrial" looks.