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

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

#601

Post by AdamN » Thu, Mar 19, 2026, 9:01 AM UTC

energy123 wrote: post #526

lesuorac wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

First year economics doesn't ignore any of this. There's behavioral economics and microeconomics, for example.

That may be true recently but there was alot of effort required to unseat Homo economicus as the sole building block of economic theory.

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

#602

Post by tialaramex » Thu, Mar 19, 2026, 9:08 AM UTC

CBLT wrote: post #18

lumirth wrote: post #12

I 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.

People are quick to point out that induced demand exists - especially people that aren't fond of change. Very broadly speaking, people mis-estimate effect sizes in economics by orders of magnitude. Induced demand is just their foothold to claim an effect exists, before they go about claiming the effect size they want to see.

How would induced demand work for housing? I understand it for say transit use or car travel or like Facebook visits, but when there's twice as much housing do I... buy another home? Buying extra houses as "an investment" in a culture that is hell bent on depreciating my investment by building more housing is one of those "r/WallStBets" crazy plays, if I'm wrong I will lose my shirt and everybody will laugh at me.

Also, even if that were a problem, which seems dubious, you can regulate it. Massive tax hikes for second and subsequent homes are a thing in some places.

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

#603

Post by 21asdffdsa12 » Thu, Mar 19, 2026, 9:11 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?

Why would you produce more bread, milk, eggs as prices fall? You would of course wait for the next-pig cycle - when the starving masses pay any price to you.

The answer- essentials can never be a non-government interferring market. This can be by creating artifical oversupply by buying up oversupply for foreign aid or bio fuels(food production). In the case of housing, this is by having the goverment continually construct housing.

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

#604

Post by kleiba » Thu, Mar 19, 2026, 9:14 AM UTC

jdasdf wrote: post #567

kleiba wrote: post #527

Before moving to Europe, I always had this conception of Germany as being very good at organizing things, especially anything involving engineering. It doesn't take long to set this picture straight. > From 2015 to 2024, Austin added 120,000 units to its housing stock—an increase of 30% Compare that to the following [1]: > The [...] government [...] intended to build 400,000 new homes annually, including at least 100…

>But it does show a number of problems inherent in Germany's current situation: (a) shortage of skilled laborers; (b) high cost of labor; and (c) exorbitantly much red tape. These three points alone are among the most frequently cited factors that companies feel inhibit business, and it holds across disciplines. There are 9 billion people in the world, roughly half of them are perfectly capable of doing manual labor.…

Like most other things, labor is highly regulated in Germany. You've got to understand that (from my experience as an outsider) it seems to be a country where it matters more what you are on paper (e.g., degrees, certifications, etc) than what you can actually do (e.g., practical experience). Not that the latter is not valued at all, but on the job market, it's often not sufficient.

Labor costs are determined by a lot of regulations - minimal wage, mandatory health insurance fees, mandatory pensions fees, etc. make labor costs in Germany much higher than the average in the West. So, it's all not that easy.

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

#605

Post by zozbot234 » Thu, Mar 19, 2026, 9:16 AM UTC

aurareturn wrote: post #599

zozbot234 wrote: post #570

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For most Americans, A house is their primary savings account, retirement plan, and probably where they keep majority of their wealth. If you allow for increases in density, that house (actually the land beneath it, but still.) becomes more valuable as it's redeveloped. So that American homeowner does benefit, by unlocking the upside of "evil gentrification" (or actually, density increase).

That can only happen if the higher density coincides with equal economic growth in the neighborhood. Otherwise, the higher density could result in a negative home valuation trend. Given the above uncertainty, and higher density could result in more traffic, noise, crime, nymbys are likely taking the correction position for wealth preservation and quality of life.

"Traffic" doesn't come from higher density, it comes from zoning bans on mixed-use neighborhoods which force people to drive everywhere. The "crime" argument is especially silly: why assume that higher density only ever attracts criminals? Usually, having more people around is a positive.

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

#606

Post by phendrenad2 » Thu, Mar 19, 2026, 9:16 AM UTC

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.

Babies throw tantrums, your job as a parent is to not give in to their demands. But California has a weakened state government due to the governor's will-he-wont-he bid for higher office some time between now and 2092, he's afraid to make waves. If it were me I'd say: you need more housing. And if the fine people of Menlo Park say no, then let them maintain El Camino Real themselves. A home depot employee will be by to unlock the shovel cage for you shortly.

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

#607

Post by suddenlybananas » Thu, Mar 19, 2026, 9:17 AM UTC

jdasdf wrote: post #567

kleiba wrote: post #527

Before moving to Europe, I always had this conception of Germany as being very good at organizing things, especially anything involving engineering. It doesn't take long to set this picture straight. > From 2015 to 2024, Austin added 120,000 units to its housing stock—an increase of 30% Compare that to the following [1]: > The [...] government [...] intended to build 400,000 new homes annually, including at least 100…

>But it does show a number of problems inherent in Germany's current situation: (a) shortage of skilled laborers; (b) high cost of labor; and (c) exorbitantly much red tape. These three points alone are among the most frequently cited factors that companies feel inhibit business, and it holds across disciplines. There are 9 billion people in the world, roughly half of them are perfectly capable of doing manual labor.…

>Don't prevent people from being brought in to build stuff.

If housing is about supply and demand, surely the demand part matters too.

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

#608

Post by pembrook » Thu, Mar 19, 2026, 9:19 AM UTC

donkeybeer wrote: post #562

rayiner wrote: post #451

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That only makes sense if there is a positive externality from housing. Is there?

Why shouldn't housing, like any other goods, be as cheap as possible for as high quality as possible?

Because "cheap" government housing has never been "high quality" in the history of the world. Those two properties are antithetical.

Humans don't have a ton of preferences for the electricity they consume or the water they drink, just that it exists. It's a commodity, so a good task for government. Housing is not an undifferentiated commodity and is subject to extreme variances in preference. Markets do differentiation and preference matching infinitely better.

Hence why Government housing always takes the form of a utilitarian blight on the community with giant towers of tiny apartments with tiny windows...doesn't matter if its communist Russia or the richest capitalist city on earth (NYC), all government housing results in the same outcome.

Assuming someone will chime in with some "halo" government housing project in the nordics that represents like 0.01% of the government stock there but socialists will use as propaganda. However, it's important to remember these are not cherry picked examples, they are median examples:

[1] NYC government housing: https://www.brickunderground.com/sites/default/files/styles/...

[2] Russian government housing: https://i.redd.it/twz37r739xse1.jpeg

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

#609

Post by watwut » Thu, Mar 19, 2026, 9:22 AM UTC

scoofy wrote: post #596

unethical_ban wrote: post #581

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some would say that housing is a right (while acknowledging the need for housing construction and its workers and supplies to be paid for) and that it should be funded somehow, even if the free marker profit becomes negative during certain periods. Like any market manipulation, the question then would be how to intervene to keep housing construction going when construction isn't profitable, while not fomenting corrup…

Housing where? Is housing for me in Malibu a human right? There's plenty of places to live in Texas for basically nothing. I'm honestly trying to take this seriously, but I really can't square the problem of location and utility. On of the reasons why West Virginia has such a low homeless rate is just that mobile homes and manufactured housing is pretty much legal in many areas around the state. One of the reasons wh…

> There's plenty of places to live in Texas for basically nothing.

What are the employment options there? If I move to a cheap house somewhere where there are no jobs for me, I just moved somewhere where I cant afford.

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

#610

Post by roysting » Thu, Mar 19, 2026, 9:22 AM UTC

CalRobert wrote: post #568

kleiba wrote: post #527

Before moving to Europe, I always had this conception of Germany as being very good at organizing things, especially anything involving engineering. It doesn't take long to set this picture straight. > From 2015 to 2024, Austin added 120,000 units to its housing stock—an increase of 30% Compare that to the following [1]: > The [...] government [...] intended to build 400,000 new homes annually, including at least 100…

While it’s a different country my experience in Ireland and the Netherlands has been that there’s this bizarre contempt for builders. Like “I build homes and sell them to people for money” basically makes you satan incarnate. So housebuilding is bogged down in x% social, y% “affordable” (because apparently the goal of making all housing affordable by actually building enough is unthinkable) and very little gets built…

Both of you are really just beating around the bush of this whole issue in basically the same way as the very people you are complaining about, albeit at a different position. You both have a very elitist mentality towards this issue, i.e., “those peasants should move out of the way for superior people like me”, when what you are both describing is ironically failure of the privileged and powerful to understand what is causing the problems, conflicts, and tension; their own behaviors, actions, and mentalities.

Maybe the indigenous population you have contempt for wanting to preserve their communities and cultures don’t want your colonialist mindset of “those savages are not utilizing the land as I wish, so we can just overrule, overrun, and take it from them. How dare they not avert their eyes, for I have a job at booking.com or I go to UT/work at Oracle/Tesla.

It’s funny how you types never suggest that newcomers, i.e., colonizers, pay a high price for their colonization and that go to the indigenous, even if just to compensate them for the imposition and abuse. You always seem to insist on wanting to kick the indigenous from atop your high horse and demand they make way to your superiority as you abuse and exploit them. You’re not any different than any other past form of this colonist mentality, you want to steal from and abuse the indigenous.