Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Austin’s surge of new housing construction drove down rents

pew.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

221–230 of 1001 posts

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

#221

Post by estearum »

pclowes wrote: post #176

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.

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?

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

#222

Post by CyberDildonics »

pottertheotter wrote: post #166
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.

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 buil…

Things such as urban form, street experience, long-term adaptability, integration with existing fabric, economic resilience, etc.

I have no idea what any of this is supposed to mean as a negative to people being able to walk around their neighborhood for essentials. It sounds like a classic vague "what about culture" argument that can't be explained.

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

#223

Post by creato »

estearum wrote: post #221
pclowes wrote: post #176

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.

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?

It doesn't matter whether prices are going up or down, it matters if the price is more than the cost to build.

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

#224

Post by terminalshort »

estearum wrote: post #221
pclowes wrote: post #176

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.

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?

Because home builders don't make money by buying and selling houses, they make money by building them and selling them.

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

#225

Post by mactrey »

kristopolous wrote: post #194
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.

No it's not. It's 2 cherry picked data points with a sample size of 1 of a complex system with multiple confounding factors such as a pandemic You can look at other neighborhoods such as palms in Los Angeles, which has the most aggressive housing build out in all of California. Median rent has increased - sometimes more housing can create more demand

Did rents in Palms go up because they built housing or because it's a great location in a city with increasing rent almost everywhere?

Or in other words, is there any econometric evidence that building housing increased rents in Palms, or could we be confusing correlation with causation?

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

#226

Post by creato »

tharmas wrote: post #218
pclowes wrote: post #176

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.

You have to restrict investors buying up that newly built housing too. Homes for people. Not investors.

It really doesn't matter as long as someone is living in it.

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

#227

Post by terminalshort »

slg wrote: post #217
pclowes wrote: post #176

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.

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?

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.

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

#228

Post by bryanlarsen »

tharmas wrote: post #218
pclowes wrote: post #176

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.

You have to restrict investors buying up that newly built housing too. Homes for people. Not investors.

35% of Americans rent their homes. And they almost invariably rent from investors. Therefore if more than 35% of homes are owned by investors this drives down rent. If less than 35% are owned by investors rent goes up.

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

#229

Post by pembrook »

estearum wrote: post #221
pclowes wrote: post #176

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.

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?

Construction costs don't scale linearly with rent prices, it's a different market altogether that depends on regulation/worker supply/material costs/equipment/etc.

As long as construction costs remain below the value of the units all-in, there's profit motive for developers to build.

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

#230

Post by lurk2 »

wcfrobert wrote: post #169
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.

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 p…

-
Post reply on HN