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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

#831

Post by ApolloFortyNine »

rootusrootus wrote: post #798
ccppurcell wrote: post #796

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A related idea: politicians know how to fix the problems, they just don't know how to get re-elected after doing so.

I occasionally wonder if it would be a net positive to make political office terms a little bit longer, but limited to exactly once. No reelection pressure. Same part of my addled brain that thinks we should increase dramatically our count of representatives, abolish in-person legislating, and then fill the roles with sortition.

Things are so party focused nowadays I don't think the person behind the mask really even matters.

It might slightly help, you'd probably have less votes on giving themselves pay raises, but at the end of the day the majority of ads and voters are going to revolve around party lines.

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

#832

Post by cucumber3732842 »

terminalshort wrote: post #270
ryanmerket wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure you can. You just need enough land and money to start basic things like a post office, city hall, courthouse, roads, and a way to get power to the whole thing. See Starbase, Texas

Starbase TX isn't a city in any sense other than a legal designation. It's a massive SpaceX industrial facility that has its own municipality similar to the way Disney World has one for its park.

I would expect the adjacent area to become some sort of a city over time. Suppliers will move nearby. Population, amenities and competition will follow. Unless of course SpaceX keels over before all this can happen.

See also: Orlando

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

#834

Post by array_key_first »

terminalshort wrote: post #295
datsci_est_2015 wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who are the people that “seriously question basic market pressure being a thing”? Am I missing something?

Just look through the comments on any post about housing or immigration and you will see hordes of them.

I think it's not that people question free market dynamics, it's that they question a market is free in the first place.

For example, healthcare in the US is basically exempt from typical free market dynamics like supply and demand because of how the market works. Consumers don't choose, everyone has a moat and parents, and costs are often subsidized.

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

#835

Post by matkoniecz »

testing22321 wrote: post #810
brazzy wrote: post #789

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except they cannot increase rents when there is enough supply for a market to actually work.

The market will remain irrational longer than… Of course they can when they own them all. See De Beers diamonds. Buy them all, keep the price artificially high.

Insanely stupid restrictions on residential construction make it easier.

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

#836

Post by vorpalhex »

pj_mukh wrote: post #701
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

"typically own the houses and they obviously don’t want the prices to go down." I've never understood this: If I replace a single home with 20 apartment homes, I've raised the value of the whole property at purchase time no? You're already dealing with home valuations that have faaar outstripped wages, the only way you go any higher is to build more homes on the same property. Counterintuitively, the "I don't want to…

I live next to a sprawling apartment complex after rezoning allowed it to go in.

Now we have a large homeless encampment partially on the apartment complex lot - that the complex can't deal with because their lawyers told them off.

Now we have a significant uptick in petty but quality of life impacting crime.

The roads around the apartment complex are now swamped because the entrances were placed stupidly.

And the people who live in that apartment complex are also upset about all of this.

None of this is about "my investment". It is about not letting commercial outfits hurt my quality of life to subsidize their profit margin. It's not the fault of the tenants, nor me.

Now we get to sue the stupid property management company until they fix their issues.

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

#837

Post by shafyy »

zozbot234 wrote: post #694
shafyy wrote: post #691

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No it doesn’t need to be “affordable” The article directly contradicts you: > "A key piece of Austin’s strategy has been to encourage the construction of affordable housing." There is enough data now from around the world that shows that it is important what kind of new housing you build. Building all new luxury units does not lead to lower rents. Another big factors for Austin is probably the significant decline i…

"Luxury housing" is a meaningless qualifier. New housing (market-rate) is always a luxury since, guess what, it's brand new! Older housing is inherently more affordable, so it's not that the new housing sells for less, but that its very availability pushes prices elsewhere down comparatively. That "elsewhere" may even be in a completely different neighborhood if the new market-rate housing acts as an amenity that soa…

No that's not true at all. You can absolutely build new housing that's luxury and ask for more than the average market rate. And also in Austin, by "affordable" they mean "income-restricted" units. The quote I copy and passted above continues like this:

> A key piece of Austin’s strategy has been to encourage the construction of affordable housing. The city pursued this goal through density bonuses—allowing taller buildings with more units when they include income-restricted units—and bond levies to build more affordable homes.

Maybe don't comment as if you know what you are talking about if you are not familiar with the politics and economics of the housing market.

Many (most?) cities have a quota of social housing (i.e. housing that's below a certain rate that allow for people with lower income to get a place). That's what meant by affordable housing in this context.

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

#838

Post by ApolloFortyNine »

bluegatty wrote: post #409
jmyeet wrote: post #390

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rent control is the wrong solution to the right problem (ie affordable housing). It creates all sorts of problems that wouldn't exist otherwise. For example, if you've been in a rent control house or apartment for 10+ years and are paying significantly less, what happens if you want to move? Or just need a bigger place? It's a huge impeediment to mobility and flexibility. Also, you have an adversarial relationship wi…

The problems that rent control creates are far smaller than the problems that exist without it. To start - your 'very first example' is not even really 'a problem'. 'Without rent control' - you get kicked out of your abode every few years if your salary doesn't keep up with housing inflation. With rent control, you have the option of 'having a home; you decide when you want to leave (for the most part). The answer to…

>'Without rent control' - you get kicked out of your abode every few years if your salary doesn't keep up with housing inflation. With rent control, you have the option of 'having a home; you decide when you want to leave (for the most part).

But your renting, you don't own your home, why are you entitled to live there forever paying a below market rate? Maintenance has costs too, eventually if you live there long enough the property owner can even be losing money on your share of the building upkeep (paid by other people's higher rents). And yes the government _should_ let you increase rent in that instance, but then you're relying on your local government, which can dramatically change decade to decade as the political landscape changes.

The quickest Google revealed rents have gone up 71% since 2019 in Quebec [1], so I'm not sure if it's the poster child for rent control. I will say that at least makes them seam reasonable to accepting increases.

[1] https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/quebec-rent-registry...

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

#839

Post by Tiktaalik »

pj_mukh wrote: post #701
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

"typically own the houses and they obviously don’t want the prices to go down." I've never understood this: If I replace a single home with 20 apartment homes, I've raised the value of the whole property at purchase time no? You're already dealing with home valuations that have faaar outstripped wages, the only way you go any higher is to build more homes on the same property. Counterintuitively, the "I don't want to…

It's absolutely the latter thing.

The thing that is prized above all else is privacy and exclusivity. People are paying money to ensure that few people live near them and that those people are the "right sort of people."

Dating back to the 1930s the original core goal of zoning was to restrict apartments so as to keep poor people and minorities out of certain areas. We know this because it's well documented in the newspapers of the day because back then people were more comfortable explicitly saying how classist and racist they were.

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

#840

Post by mmooss »

pclowes wrote: post #420
mmooss wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Its wild how the solution to housing costs is really just: > Build more housing. Keep law and order. Safety (law and order) increases housing costs, as you say. It's desireable on its own, but it does not solve housing cost. NYC is very safe and very expensive. Crime is way down in most of the US, and housing costs are much higher.

NYC is fairly high density. Has stopped building massive new skyscrapers and has water on two sides. It is also a tier 1 global city culturally AND economically. Its not really reasonable to expect to be affordable.

It's been affordable for many generations, a destination for opportunity for the poorest people, including immigrants. It's only recently that things have become so absurd.

> water on two sides

Do you mean Manhattan, one of the five boroughs? It's an island.

> stopped building massive new skyscrapers

When? Why?

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