Austin’s surge of new housing construction drove down rents • Hacker News Board

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

#371

Post by vasco » Thu, Mar 19, 2026, 4:05 AM UTC

Spivak wrote: post #368

vasco wrote: post #359

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You think the government knows better how to identify land that is profitable than private builders? Why? Or is this one of those opinions based on "is OK for the state to pay for it because there's infinite money for my pet project"?

Because government has a unique pricing advantage, they get additional value from the houses they build in the form of all the positive externalities and property tax revenue. So projects that wouldn't be profitable for private builders might still be worth it to the government. So it should be both. They're just gonna pay builders a sum anyway so it's not like they need to shoulder the full upfront cost anyway.

Do you have example of another area the government has higher profit margins than private industry? I can't. And if I was going to think a government would build housing, it would be in places that are cheap and I could mass house a bunch of people, not in hip expensive cities which is what people want when they talk about this.

But surely soviet style huge blocks of tiny t0 apartments all stuck together is a dream...

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

#372

Post by 0_____0 » Thu, Mar 19, 2026, 4:05 AM UTC

fragmede wrote: post #189

0_____0 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Public housing projects were and sort of still are a thing. Glass Amendment limits the number of units that can be produced but most areas are well below those limits and the larger issue is that there's no budget or political willpower for social housing projects right now.

There wasn't, but given the housing market right now, I don't know that there isn't.

Most blue metros in the US have a bad combination of high labor costs/low labor availability, high regulatory burden, wealthy conservative inhabitants who oppose construction, and working class people who are convinced that construction is gentrification.

I've been racking my brain trying ti figure out what it looks like for US cities to pull out of the housing crisis, and I think it's either going to take about a generation, or there will be some catastrophic event (Great Depression II, WWIII) that changes the political landscape so drastically that nobody can really oppose housing anymore.

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

#373

Post by manlymuppet » Thu, Mar 19, 2026, 4:06 AM UTC

slg wrote: post #252

jychang wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The comment is phrased in the greater context of the public discussion about housing, in general. Not the specific information of the article. You know, like how a discussion about war might reference the various recent wars that everyone knows about; it's not limited to just the content of the article.

But it didn't reference anything, it stated political opinions like they were confirmed facts, provided zero evidence to support those assertions, and completely ignored the ways in which the article provides counterevidence.

They aren't saying affordable housing isn't needed. Just that the method for making housing affordable shouldn't be trying to make the current housing supply cheaper.

And from this is where you get "rent-control is a terrible idea". Essentially: trying to artificially drive down housing prices in any way is generally inadvisable if you can just build more housing.

Sure that's technically an opinion, but it's one based in facts, and it certainly doesn't have "zero evidence".

https://www.brookings.edu/articles/what-does-economic-eviden...

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

#374

Post by cheriot » Thu, Mar 19, 2026, 4:08 AM UTC

maxerickson wrote: post #40

cheriot wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Growth and fewer restrictions on what can be built makes your land more valuable. Apartment buildings in place of detached houses means rent prices can go down while land prices go up.

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

#375

Post by 9rx » Thu, Mar 19, 2026, 4:10 AM UTC

triceratops wrote: post #365

9rx wrote: post #361

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And here I thought people who want to live in houses add to demand for housing. Desire is a necessary component in demand, but it also requires willingness at a given price point. If houses are selling for $1,000,000 and you only have $500,000 to spend, then no matter how much you dream every night about having a home, you are not a contributor to demand.

Counterpoint: houses sell for $1,000,000 because there are more people with $500,000 (and every other number less than $1,000,000) who want those houses than there are houses.

How is that a counterpoint? It says the same thing with different words.

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

#376

Post by pinkmuffinere » Thu, Mar 19, 2026, 4:10 AM UTC

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?

I'm confused by this objection, if you draw a stereotypical supply and demand curve, you can see how prices settle to an equilibrium point. Of course reality has more complications, but I think your objection is 95% answered by a supply and demand curve. You keep building houses when it is profitable. You stop when it is not. This naturally keeps everything in balance.

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

#377

Post by paxys » Thu, Mar 19, 2026, 4:10 AM UTC

adrianN wrote: post #341

wcfrobert wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I'm not sure why new housing devalues old housing. In my mind, higher density generally makes an area more desirable (e.g. because higher density enables more jobs, better infrastructure) and raises the value. Imagine as an extreme example and existing house in the middle of nowhere around which a metropolis is developed. Surely the value of the house, or at least the land it is built on, goes up, even though it lose…

You think if there were modern highrises in Menlo Park a tiny 2BR shack next door would still sell for $2M? It’s a supply and demand issue, nothing more.

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

#378

Post by bluegatty » Thu, Mar 19, 2026, 4:11 AM UTC

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.

Rent control is one of the best ideas, and it may be a civilizational, foundational idea.

Property ownership is at the very core of entrenched power, and the foundation of rent-seeking and wealth asymmetry.

If you look at even the Monarchs of long past - it wasn't their 'titles' that made them powerful - it was the economic rent that came along with the land ownership.

Even in more open market economies, property is still is basically long term economics lording over short term economics of wage earning workers.

Being able to kick someone out of their home almost arbitrary basically puts working class people at the 'total whims of the market' and it's one of the most disruptive concepts imaginable.

If we take the view that 'housing is about housing first - only about investment to the extent it does not disrupt housing' - then a different perspective takes shape.

Many Canadian provinces have 'basic rent controls' and it does not generally prevent new housing development.

If anything, providing 'housing stability' is probably the best way to create base prosperity, so those people can go out and spend on all the other things.

There might need to be some degree of leeway here and there for certain kinds of density challenges, but that can be had with rent control

There is almost unlimited land in North America to build on - if in one spot it's a bit difficult - build elsewhere.

If people want to have 'density' then incorporate an area and 'build density' in that area.

Also it does need to be 'affordable' but that can work with regulations.

Edit: our housing problems are about screwed up management, it's actually not even an ideological problem underneath. Like 'rent control' the way it is framed scares some people, but its literally province wide in Ontario, Quebec and it's a 'non issue' for new unit hinderance. Even the nimbyism stuff can be worked around: if people don't want high-rises next to them, it's their right, but there's a lot less opposition to 'mild density' especially if it fits in local cultural and aesthetic context. We can have our cake and it eat on housing. I think we invent ideological lenses because it's easier to frame 'narratives' than it is just weird policies, special circumstances, hiccups, different municipal things going on all at once.

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

#379

Post by kristopolous » Thu, Mar 19, 2026, 4:12 AM UTC

mactrey wrote: post #225

kristopolous wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Exactly. You can't just look at two data points in a system with hundreds of confounding variables, many of them unquantifiable and say "aha! This simple linear equation of supply and demand, that they teach in middle school, is correct!"

That's not science, it's dogmatism

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

#380

Post by autoexec » Thu, Mar 19, 2026, 4:15 AM UTC

sgc wrote: post #354

adrianN wrote: post #343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm under the impression that more supply=lower rents, even if execution is not perfect, but I'm not an economist.

Sure if that's all you care about, it will do that. At the price of making people's lives miserable due to substandard housing if it's done wrong. I said it's a good idea, let's just make sure we do it right.

> At the price of making people's lives miserable due to substandard housing if it's done wrong.

I'm curious to see how Austin will do in the near future by that same metric. More people can afford a place that will let them pay rent, although now at least some of those people will be living in someone else's basement or garage. These may not be very nice places to live, but they may be all some people can afford.

They've also removed the regulation requiring a second way out of a burning 5 story building. Austin faces an increasing number of red flag warnings and has the 5th highest wildfire risk in the US. It remains to be seen what removing that second exit route will cost in the charred corpses of families.

Austin is also cutting corners on permitting which is great news if that was all needless red tape that can be rushed or skipped without cost, but if new apartments built today are (or soon become) deathtraps due to lax code enforcement that could be a major problem down the road.

Austin has already lowered rents which is great, but hopefully it was also done right and it doesn't result in more people being forced into substandard housing or increased deaths. As long as it doesn't, other cities should look into trying some of the same things Austin has done.