[flagged]
Austin’s surge of new housing construction drove down rents
161–170 of 1001 posts
Re: Austin’s surge of new housing construction drove down rents
#162I'll admit ignorance here, but I've been skeptical of the claim that new construction drives rents down. What I actually see is: a luxury apartment building goes up, surveys the market, and sets its rents 30% higher for the privilege of living in a new building with a gym for dogs or ball pit or whatever. Then the older buildings say, "Well, we can raise our rents 20% and still be the best deal in town," and so on. M…
There were a ton of apartments built in lower-cost areas outside of the urban center as well - the Parmer area (near the new Apple campus), the Tech Ridge area near I-35, and out by the airport and Tesla factory as a few examples. It wasn't only high-end, lots of mid-level stuff was built too.
Re: Austin’s surge of new housing construction drove down rents
#163Earlier quoted context omitted.
There's loads of other inefficiencies as well. Moving is a huge hurdle. It's difficult to find housing that meets dozens of conditions, and even then you don't respond to supply + demand imagined equilibrium, you pay more or pay less to live near friends or family. It's something you only do a handful of times in your whole life. Trying to use the same analysis as for buying a can of beans is absurd. You might need t…
I'm not clear: does Econ 201 inform us as to how demand and supply are not related to price?
it says "it's complicated".
Re: Austin’s surge of new housing construction drove down rents
#164I mean… duh? Genuinely baffled at people struggling to understand this. When there’s more of a thing, it costs less. Which is good when that thing is essential, like housing. Not sure the idea of housing being an asset which endlessly accrues value is good for anybody involved, long-term. Open to disagreement, though! I’m no economist.
> When there’s more of a thing, it costs less.
Yeah, and when we add lanes to roads, the average speeds increase and commutes get shorter. Right?
Also, if the government gives me $1 billion, then I'll be rich. But what happens if the government gives everyone $1 billion? Everyone will be rich, right?
Re: Austin’s surge of new housing construction drove down rents
#165Earlier quoted context omitted.
There's loads of other inefficiencies as well. Moving is a huge hurdle. It's difficult to find housing that meets dozens of conditions, and even then you don't respond to supply + demand imagined equilibrium, you pay more or pay less to live near friends or family. It's something you only do a handful of times in your whole life. Trying to use the same analysis as for buying a can of beans is absurd. You might need t…
I'm not clear: does Econ 201 inform us as to how demand and supply are not related to price?
Yes, you learn why supply + demand curves do not actually describe many markets
Re: Austin’s surge of new housing construction drove down rents
#166Good 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.
I just hope that people remember this is just one factor affecting quality of life and making a city work.
"Density at all costs" ignores a huge set of tradeoffs that are equally as damaging to a city. Things such as urban form, street experience, long-term adaptability, integration with existing fabric, economic resilience, etc. These are the things that make a city work in the long term.
I’m a big proponent of building more housing. But a lot of it is being doing in very short sided ways that lead to huge externalities.
Re: Austin’s surge of new housing construction drove down rents
#167This reads like some triumph but rent was up 100%+ from 2010, and it is merely back down 15%.
Even adjusting for inflation, and even if the measurement of inflation is decent, it would still need to go down by another 20%.
Re: Austin’s surge of new housing construction drove down rents
#168Earlier 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…
Housing is also really weird:
- the main input (land) is also an output, so when the price of the output goes up, so does the value of the input.
- economies of scale don't really work, due to the impracticality of transporting the good (houses) and fitting the good inside a machine (in house "factories", normal workers go inside the house and work on it by hand; not a lot changes compared to traditional construction)
- more supply in one area increases the value (and therefore demand) in that area, so it's not actually clear-cut whether building more would reduce the price more than it increases it, at first glance.
Re: Austin’s surge of new housing construction drove down rents
#169Meanwhile, 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.
NIMBYism has never been about preserving neighborhood characteristic, or noise and traffic concerns. Menlo Park is not Big Sur. Sure, some concerns are reasonable and should be investigated, but most of the time they're bureaucratic distractions that's been weaponized by people who want to delay progress and protect their investment.
For most Americans, A house is their primary savings account, retirement plan, and probably where they keep majority of their wealth. We don't build new housing in old neighborhoods because it would de-value the investment of too many people. Until we can solve this problem (where people are incentivized to pull the ladder up behind them), we will always have housing shortages. It's just too profitable.
Re: Austin’s surge of new housing construction drove down rents
#170Earlier quoted context omitted.
[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…
[flagged]