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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

#121

Post by trollbridge »

atomicnumber3 wrote: post #21
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

So, do we just need to nationalize housing construction? If the free market apparently just can't handle it?

We already have that. They're called "housing projects".

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

#122

Post by dmitrygr »

narrator wrote: post #67
rconti wrote: post #11

Meanwhile, California is also trying to build housing near transit, but Menlo Park wants to preserve the character of downtown by preserving dirty, cracked, flat, surface-level parking lots like it's 1950.

[flagged]

[dead]

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

#123

Post by trollbridge »

nomilk wrote: post #118

Dumb question, many cities suffer from extremely high property (i.e. land) prices. I understand the NIMBY barrier. But I don't understand why it isn't more common to simply.. start a new city. Especially in countries like Australia where property prices are sky high and alternative places for setting up a new city are abundant. Maybe internet connectivity was previously a barrier, but now.. starlink. I put this quest…

[dead]

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

#124

Post by JumpCrisscross »

mr_00ff00 wrote: post #92
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's foolish and anti-intellectual to insist that the housing market has only two factors Elasticitiy moderates the effect. It doesn't reverse it. Increasing housing supply decreases housing costs. A lot of people are venally or ideologically motivated against accepting this. Our housing crisis is a political choice. (Note: I'm a homeowner.)

This reminds of a fun fact I remember learning in university. Elasticity is the relationship between demand and supply, and there are actually very rare instances where it can be negative (where demand increases with price). These are called Giffen goods. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giffen_good Explanation (that I remember) Inelastic demand is when a good is demanded so much, that an increase in price has little af…

Cool! Thanks!

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

#125

Post by JumpCrisscross »

peder wrote: post #105
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's foolish and anti-intellectual to insist that the housing market has only two factors Elasticitiy moderates the effect. It doesn't reverse it. Increasing housing supply decreases housing costs. A lot of people are venally or ideologically motivated against accepting this. Our housing crisis is a political choice. (Note: I'm a homeowner.)

> A lot of people are venally or ideologically motivated against accepting this. That’s the story of the last 10 years among certain types that keep regurgitating obviously wrong concepts.

> That’s the story of the last 10 years

The urban orthodoxy is around demand rationing. Supply-side arguments are incredibly new. The evidence cuts in one direction. (Unless we want a hukou system.)

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

#126

Post by pembrook »

lesuorac wrote: post #103
muyuu wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it's crazy that people nowadays seriously question basic market pressure being a thing

Eh, people really need to be questioning econ 101 more often. It's built upon untrue assumptions - infinite buyers / sellers - perfect information - no switching / transaction costs --- The article itself has 3 different year ranges provided so I'm not sure how you can use it as evidence. Plus overall the rent is still up by a lot since 93% - 4% is still at least 80%. - Rents increase by 93% from 2010 to 2019 - Housi…

Ah yes, that 150 year old meme reflexively copy-pasta'd by internet commenters since the days of usenet to refute basic concepts like supply and demand.

"Lol economists are dumb they think humans are robots!"

No they don't. Sorry, we won't be throwing away an entire field of human endeavor based on a straw man caricature that isn't true.

We don't call physicists dumb and throw out their ideas because the real world isn't a perfect vacuum either. They know this, don't be silly.

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

#127

Post by mcmcmc »

narrator wrote: post #67
rconti wrote: post #11

Meanwhile, California is also trying to build housing near transit, but Menlo Park wants to preserve the character of downtown by preserving dirty, cracked, flat, surface-level parking lots like it's 1950.

[flagged]

> In California people are very scared of poor people because they tend to commit more crime and the justice system refuses to prosecute and imprision them, especially if they are criminally insane.

Funny to read this when it’s common knowledge the rich commit so much tax evasion the IRS doesn’t bother investigating, and tech billionaires like Thiel are regularly abusing hard drugs and spewing unhinged theories about the end times and an AI god. You can just say you don’t like poor people. You don’t have to use some statistical fallacy that supports your confirmation bias.

The reality is that the visibility of criminal acts is inversely correlated with income. Why would a rich criminal spray paint graffiti on a building when they’re making so much money off white collar crime that they can just buy it and do whatever they want?

That’s not even getting into all of the things that should be crimes but aren’t, because the ultra wealthy and their megacorps can legally bribe politicians to their hearts content. Or the child sex trafficking. Epstein’s buddies weren’t living rough.

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

#128

Post by thaumasiotes »

mr_00ff00 wrote: post #92
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's foolish and anti-intellectual to insist that the housing market has only two factors Elasticitiy moderates the effect. It doesn't reverse it. Increasing housing supply decreases housing costs. A lot of people are venally or ideologically motivated against accepting this. Our housing crisis is a political choice. (Note: I'm a homeowner.)

This reminds of a fun fact I remember learning in university. Elasticity is the relationship between demand and supply, and there are actually very rare instances where it can be negative (where demand increases with price). These are called Giffen goods. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giffen_good Explanation (that I remember) Inelastic demand is when a good is demanded so much, that an increase in price has little af…

> These are called Giffen goods.

The terminology is actually split; sometimes they're called Giffen goods and sometimes they're called Veblen goods.

The two types have identical behavior, so there's no good reason to have two different names, but in concept Giffen goods are something poor people buy, while Veblen goods are something rich people buy.

(There is a difference if you're willing to look at responses to changes other than a change in the price of a good: if you give a household more money, it will increase consumption of Veblen goods, but decrease consumption of Giffen goods.)

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

#129

Post by tasty_freeze »

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…

If you are in your terminal home, then yes, selfishly one would want the value to go up. But if you ever plan on moving to another home, sure dropping prices mean you get less, but it also means you pay less for your next purchase.

If you are in your terminal home, you also want low prices until the week before you eventually sell your house, as Texas has a high property tax rate to make up for the lack of state income tax.

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

#130

Post by solid_fuel »

calvinmorrison wrote: post #87
solid_fuel wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A lot of regular homeowners fight new developments tooth and nail. In a system where those with more capitol have more power, homeowners are the powers that be. They're more likely to vote and have more money for discretionary spending - like donating to politicians.

People have been steered for decades into using their home as a vehicle for retirement. Of course they want to protecet it.

I'm not blaming individual homeowners, there are very strong incentives for treating homes like retirement investments. It's an issue of policy, but we do have to address that it is also causing rent to rise and contributing to the homelessness crisis.
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