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Austin’s surge of new housing construction drove down rents

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Re: Austin’s surge of new housing construction drove down rents

#31

Post by standardUser »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #9
nemomarx wrote: post #3

Good news - experimental verification of the law of supply and demand! I'm sure the analysis is welcome though and I hope policy makers try to learn from this. We could densify most american cities quite a lot more.

Developers not recouping their investment will discourage less housing in Austin in the future and it will become expensive again. A lot of our current housing shortages are from the build up in 2008 and an implosion of the entire industry (so that crafts people did not really exist for the next need for housing).

It's a balancing act. Build too much and developers make less money. Build too little and poverty and homelessness shoot up. Which side do you want to err on?

Re: Austin’s surge of new housing construction drove down rents

#32

Post by dmoy »

clamprecht wrote: post #6

At a glance, I'm a bit skeptical. It looks like they're cherry picking the high point for rent (the COVID spike). > "Rents fell. In December 2021, Austin’s median rent was $1,546, near its highest level ever and 15% higher than the U.S. median ($1,346)." Of course having more housing should, all things equal, lower rent. But all things certainly weren't equal, especially during this time period.

Idk about rent, but even as of a year or two ago, Austin metro housing index was lower than its 2016 level. Rent following a similar trajectory wouldn't be super surprising to me.

Re: Austin’s surge of new housing construction drove down rents

#33

Post by TulliusCicero »

amelius wrote: post #10
nemomarx wrote: post #3

Good news - experimental verification of the law of supply and demand! I'm sure the analysis is welcome though and I hope policy makers try to learn from this. We could densify most american cities quite a lot more.

What if the people in power don't want prices to go down?

It's typically local residents who fight this. There's a "fuck you, got mine" tendency to pull up the ladder once you've made it.

Re: Austin’s surge of new housing construction drove down rents

#34

Post by JumpCrisscross »

cg5280 wrote: post #27
amelius wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if the people in power don't want prices to go down?

The problem isn’t the powers that be. A lot of regular homeowners fight new developments tooth and nail. And many blue states unfortunately give them a lot of tools to do so.

> A lot of regular homeowners fight new developments

Which is self interested. The paradox is renters being turned against their own interests by large landlords pitching anti-gentrification.

Re: Austin’s surge of new housing construction drove down rents

#36

Post by TulliusCicero »

clamprecht wrote: post #6

At a glance, I'm a bit skeptical. It looks like they're cherry picking the high point for rent (the COVID spike). > "Rents fell. In December 2021, Austin’s median rent was $1,546, near its highest level ever and 15% higher than the U.S. median ($1,346)." Of course having more housing should, all things equal, lower rent. But all things certainly weren't equal, especially during this time period.

If you just compare it to other cities you can see that Austin did much better in prices.

Re: Austin’s surge of new housing construction drove down rents

#38

Post by shcheklein »

Can it be also related to demand not catching up or even declining? If place is in high demand and prices go down shouldn't it cause even more people coming to it (compensating for a possible price change). (Note: not an expert on this, I'm just curious how it really works - besides obvious thing: more supply -> price goes down).

Re: Austin’s surge of new housing construction drove down rents

#39

Post by TulliusCicero »

xwowsersx wrote: post #5

You mean to tell me that increasing supply lowers price? Fascinating.

Unfortunately, there's a lot of people -- especially further left -- who fight this kind of reasoning. They insist that the housing market is different, and that just building more private housing won't help.

No amount of evidence will convince these people, because they already made up their mind ahead of time: their ideology says the market can't help, so the market can't help, period. Any evidence to the contrary is a plot by billionaires or something.

Re: Austin’s surge of new housing construction drove down rents

#40

Post by maxerickson »

cheriot wrote: post #20
lifeisstillgood wrote: post #7

>>> The city changed zoning regulations to allow construction of large apartment buildings, particularly near jobs and transit. In 2018, voters approved a $250 million bond measure to build and repair affordable housing. Permitting processes were reformed to speed development and reduce costs. All three of the five things most economists say about house building - and each one will hit house owning voters hard making…

> and each one will hit house owning voters hard making it hard to replicate In a negative way?

As a homeowner, I want number to go up.

These things push against that.

Really, I'd prefer not having policies that tend to push up housing prices or discourage people from moving, but here we are, those types of policies are common.

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