Tesla’s headquarters will move to Austin • Hacker News Board

Re: Tesla’s headquarters will move to Austin

#241

Post by boringg » Fri, Oct 08, 2021, 1:03 AM UTC

asdff wrote: post #201

Anyone have a running list of enormously rich people moving from California to Texas to avoid being taxed on a windfall and ostensibly justifying it with insert reason here ? So far I have Joe Rogan with his spotify deal and now Musk with some of his options coming up for payday.

The plan was hatched when they smoked that joint together. Great state to move to if you want to avoid taxes on capital gains and if you want to build factories doing whatever the heck you want with no worker protections.

If you really think of it - one of the main reasons Musk started in CA was because thats where his client base was to get the homegrown advantages for clientbase, talent and green benefits/cred. Now since his base has moved globally, he is moving to the lowest cost of operations (read: Texas). And to be fair - it would be very difficult to upsize any of his manufacturing capabilities in the bay area. The fact that he even has a major facility there is kind of impressive.

Re: Tesla’s headquarters will move to Austin

#242

Post by edbob » Fri, Oct 08, 2021, 1:03 AM UTC

nyolfen wrote: post #42

dlp211 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Taxes are much better Only for the upper-middle class and rich. https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2021-05-19/wait-c...

texas does not have state income tax, sales taxes are about average and property taxes are higher than average

Property tax rates are higher on a percentage basis, but property values can be much lower, so you can still come out ahead on the property taxes.

larsiusprime had a good analysis [0] that gets into some of the details.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28793851

Re: Tesla’s headquarters will move to Austin

#243

Post by etchalon » Fri, Oct 08, 2021, 1:03 AM UTC

mdoms wrote: post #221

etchalon wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who just bought a house in Austin this year, if the reason is "affordable housing", they're in for a world of hurt.

As someone who lives somewhere with an actual housing crisis, I just did a Zillow search for homes in Austin and I don't think you quite understand what a housing crisis looks like. Your homes look dirt cheap by Kiwi standards.

They look cheap because they're underpriced. At the moment, most houses are closing 15-20% higher than list and a lot of them are offered in all cash deals.

That's slowly changing, but I suspect that's temporary.

Re: Tesla’s headquarters will move to Austin

#244

Post by throwaway0a5e » Fri, Oct 08, 2021, 1:04 AM UTC

asdff wrote: post #209

kshacker wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The question is whether the equivalent house is just a couple hundred grand cheaper, or a million cheaper? Couple million maybe for a nice new mansion?

Median home price in austin is nearly 600k and in California its 800k, so its not as dramatic as a million cheaper unless you are considering places like the hollywood hills where homes go for north of $1.4m minimum (although you can get a home elsewhere in the LA area for $750k in many parts, this is a relatively high water mark)

>Median home price in austin is nearly 600k and in California its 800k,

Compare Austin to somewhere near Freemont or compare TX to CA. Comparing Austin to all of CA is more than a little dishonest since there's a lot of rural nowheres in CA to drag down the average price but the comparison exludes all of Texas's rural nowheres.

Re: Tesla’s headquarters will move to Austin

#245

Post by TedDoesntTalk » Fri, Oct 08, 2021, 1:05 AM UTC

vmception wrote: post #205

pvarangot wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I talked to several Tesla and former Tesla folks that will probably relocate because of this, and the say is that since Austin in less NIMBY than the Bay Area new housing will get built and prices will go down. It's a more complex bet than just "we move there because houses are affordable now".

I don't think we really need to localize this conversation as nowhere can economically manage a large exodus of people from California's 40,000,000 population. The only thing to remember is that Californians can afford the new area's current housing prices and a decade's worth of price increases.

Influx of Californians raises the local housing prices because they can pay a lot more after selling in California. This has happened and continues to happen in metro Denver and Boise.

Re: Tesla’s headquarters will move to Austin

#246

Post by jasondigitized » Fri, Oct 08, 2021, 1:05 AM UTC

thephyber wrote: post #163

nine_k wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This being Texas, I suppose Austin has fewer restrictions on new development, so housing prices may be less crazy. To say nothing of taxes, which leave more of your wages to pay the rent.

Your intuition is shared by many, but it is a little off. Lots of low/middle income Californians actually have a higher total tax burden in Texas.[1] And I’d guess that Austin is one of the places where cost of living is highest for Texas, reducing the net quality of life profit. Also, residential expansion in those two places is a bit of apples and oranges. Bay Area is surrounded by water, mountains, and Open Space…

Austin is where the Hill Country begins. A large swath of it is hardly flat. With that said your main premise is correct. Land as far as the eye can see.

Re: Tesla’s headquarters will move to Austin

#247

Post by vondur » Fri, Oct 08, 2021, 1:05 AM UTC

thebradbain wrote: post #179

asdff wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Property taxes are higher than California, right? I can't find the source handy at the moment, but I've heard that a house in Austin that looks like a couple hundred grand cheaper than an equivalent house in California for the listing isn't actually any cheaper when you factor in the increased taxes and potentially other costs I'm not aware of.

Property taxes are _much_ higher in Texas than California, in fact Texas has one of the highest property taxes in the nation (because there's no income tax, and TX still needs to fund itself somehow; TX also has one of the highest sales taxes for this reason, too). You pay the same on property taxes for a $400k house in Texas as a $1M house in California. Not only that, CA has Prop 13: for better or worse, your prope…

I thought Prop 13 no longer applies to current purchases? If you own a house under prop 13 it’s under way low property tax, but if you sell it, it get reassessed at the new current value. Is this not the case? When we purchased our house years ago the taxes weren’t cheap and we had to pay the additional Melli-Roos tax.

Re: Tesla’s headquarters will move to Austin

#248

Post by adminscoffee » Fri, Oct 08, 2021, 1:05 AM UTC

Apocryphon wrote: post #56

The official reason is because of housing: "To be clear we will be continuing to expand our activities in California," Musk said. "Our intention is to increase output from Fremont and Giga Nevada by 50%. If you go to our Fremont factory it's jammed." But, he added, "It's tough for people to afford houses, and people have to come in from far away....There's a limit to how big you can scale in the Bay Area." https://ww…

check out seattle, we got prices that rock /s

Re: Tesla’s headquarters will move to Austin

#249

Post by SauciestGNU » Fri, Oct 08, 2021, 1:05 AM UTC

philwelch wrote: post #202

zeruch wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a PR move to cow CA politicians to be more amenable to C-suites without challenge. It's theater. Petty, obstinate, twattish theater.

Those poor, powerless, persecuted politicians.

Politicians are at least theoretically accountable to an electorate, whereas egomaniacal billionaires are accountable to nobody.

Re: Tesla’s headquarters will move to Austin

#250

Post by ameister14 » Fri, Oct 08, 2021, 1:06 AM UTC

etchalon wrote: post #190

pvarangot wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I talked to several Tesla and former Tesla folks that will probably relocate because of this, and the say is that since Austin in less NIMBY than the Bay Area new housing will get built and prices will go down. It's a more complex bet than just "we move there because houses are affordable now".

I'm not sure why they think Austin is less NIMBY. That hasn't been my experience.

In 2019, San Francisco housing grew in total by 4,850 units, which was an increase of 81%! over 2018.

By comparison, Austin permitted 8600 multi-family units in 2018 alone. That doesn't include single family detached, which averages another 2800 a year.