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Austin’s surge of new housing construction drove down rents

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

#731

Post by juleiie »

bpt3 wrote: post #662
jaapz wrote: post #640

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would you build on a plot of land when the plot of land itself is already appreciating in value with you doing nothing to it Building is risky and costly Having an asset that appreciates on its own regardless of what you do with it is not

Holding costs of land are far from $0 in any major metropolitan area. Sitting on it involves its own form of risk. Vacant land that's desirable is often held back from development due to zoning or infrastructure issues.

Guys you have no idea about these things and what you are talking about. source: I am a city plot owner.

No land owner will suddenly become a developer to build an apartment block.

A plot owner can sell land to a developer or form a joint venture with developer putting in their land as starting capital (much more risky) most people either keep land as gold or sell it when they need money.

I hope it is clearer now.

The very idea that everyone who owns land should build an apartment block is laughable, it is very complicated endeavour best not to get into it if you know nothing about it. Hell building a single family house is complex, let alone five story building.

So you either keep it if you don’t need money or you sell it if you want to buy something else or need to have liquidity. And you don’t even sell it to buy other investment vehicle because land is already better than gold.

My plot increased 3 times in price in 10 years. Try to beat that with SP500. It’s virtually immune to inflation no matter how the broader economy fares it will always shield from inflation because you cannot make more land hah.

Even in utopia of automation and post scarcity society good location land will be truly lucrative and unimaginably expensive if not outright prohibited to own by private individuals. The question is what will be a “good location” in 30 years.

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

#732

Post by torginus »

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?

How can real estate have zero margin when housing rises exponentially in price?

No other good behaves like this. A midsize sedan didn't increase in price (in real term) over time, while new cars improved.

New houses don't really improve that much over time, yet are getting more more and more expensive.

Why is that?

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

#733

Post by ImPostingOnHN »

rayiner wrote: post #727
ImPostingOnHN wrote: post #463

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course, many. To be sure, are you asking if society does better when its people are homed vs. homeless? Because that seems like a question with an obviously-yes answer.

The concept of externality has a specific definition and you’re not addressing housing in those terms.

I'm not sure "externality" means what you think it means.

Society being better off in many ways (more productive society, happier society, less crime-ridden society) is an example of multiple positive externalities resulting from its people being homed vs. homeless.

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

#734

Post by beepbooptheory »

triceratops wrote: post #711
7speter wrote: post #407

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Your comment violates site guidelines. "Assume good faith" https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html What did you hope to do by saying this?

What is a better faith interpretation of downplaying gentrification like this? Like what do we talk about when we talk about gentrification if not this? Gp is not even, like, denying the concept, and literally saying that it is good (in a sarcastic way).

It's not "better faith" to construct an entire alternative world for the user's comment to remove it from the actually existing implications of their point. I am not sure what that it is, but it certainly isn't a healthy exchange of ideas.

"I think we should burn down all the forests"; "Oh geeze that sounds like a terrible idea.."; "um it's actually pretty bad faith for you to assume they were talking about forests on Earth and not some bad evil forests that could hypothetically exist somewhere else..." taps the guidelines sign

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

#735

Post by bartlebyS »

hunterpayne wrote: post #625
bartlebyS wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my neighborhood in NYC, I've also observed that rents increased after luxury apartments were built here. In fact my landlord cited the increased median rent in the neighborhood as a reason to raise my rent. My understanding of the situation is that luxury apartments do indeed gentrify neighborhoods (i.e. they increase the local rent and drive displacement of locals that can't keep up with those rent increases). Ho…

"In fact my landlord cited the increased median rent in the neighborhood as a reason to raise my rent." Your landlord lied to you to get you to pay the increase. You had little choice because finding a cheaper apartment probably wasn't possible/desirable and you probably didn't want to argue with him in front of the rent board. Understandable but that doesn't mean your landlord's explanation has any validity.

You're saying that even though landlords may justify rent increases because of new constructions, if new constructions hadn't been built they would have used a different justification? And the rent increase would have increased just as much?

That's possible!

Maybe the rent increase is independent of that single new construction. Or it could be mixed depending on the type of housing. I looked into it a bit more[1] and it seems like lower-quality apartments near a new build go up in price but high-quality ones go down in price.

[1]: https://nlihc.org/resource/new-construction-has-mixed-short-...

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

#736

Post by lenwood »

torginus wrote: post #729
left-struck wrote: post #669

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s a difficult problem not because we don’t know the simple solutions (supply and demand). It’s difficult because the people who have the majority vote also typically own the houses and they obviously don’t want the prices to go down. This is not just speaking about the US, many countries are facing this issue

But people who only own 1 house at most are still disadvantaged by this - sure, the value of their apt goes up, but if they want to switch to a larger house, the difference they're paying also increases, so do the property and wealth taxes, if applicable. There are many stories of solidly low-to-middle class families who lived in an area where property prices soared, and had to choose between bankruptcy or moving out…

> So allowing housing prices to surge is literally taxing the poor for the benefit of the rich.

How do we limit home prices increasing? I see your point but solving this isn't trivial.

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

#737

Post by solatic »

fyredge wrote: post #629
solatic wrote: post #507

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 'adversarial tenant/landlord' is that the theory doesn't line up with reality So disconnected from reality that it beggars belief. Anytime you put two or more adult people into a relationship together and at least one person feels like they do not have the option to leave if things get bad (e.g. landlord feels like the tenant is wrecking the property but has no right to evict, tenant feels like landlord is not taki…

Why is right to evict tied to rent control? Seems irrelevant "Pressure to stay" can certainly be alleviated, rent control all properties. Half measures do not necessarily solve half the problem.

Rent control is literally the removal of the right to evict a tenant who refuses the otherwise-uncontrolled rent increase you request. The inability to evict them for refusing the rent increase is what de-facto keeps the rent from increasing beyond its controlled limit.

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

#738

Post by thinkingtoilet »

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?

>The problem is: why would you build more housing as prices fall?

So human beings with thoughts and feelings can live indoors. It's not hard.

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

#739

Post by terminalshort »

amarant wrote: post #353
terminalshort wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Super easy unless you have moved recently, then you don't get the bill and end up years later in collections for the original amount plus a million late fees added on.

Nah it arrives electronically to kivra, which is like email except you log in with your social security number and it's only for "official business" like invoices and whatnot.

That sounds great! In the US the phrase you used "mailed to my sthlm address" would never mean anything other than physically sending a paper bill to your house.

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

#740

Post by donkeybeer »

rayiner wrote: post #725
donkeybeer wrote: post #562

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Do you think that’s what government produced goods gets you? If so, shouldn’t the government make everything?

I was saying in general, privately or government built housing, not that government in particular should be making housing. I meant that housing market seems to be highly anticapitalist in many ways valuing the opposite of what a good should be.
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