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

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

#881

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Mar 19, 2026, 5:29 PM UTC

philipallstar wrote: post #682

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

Lots of people have kids and want them to be able to a) not be a victim of crime, and b) be able to afford a house. Anyone who has loads of money to afford high house prices and private security can afford luxury beliefs, as espoused in Oscar acceptance speeches, but everyone else with housing and kids is either voting for less crime and better affordability, or is not yet voting for those things.

[deleted]

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

#882

Post by FuriouslyAdrift » Thu, Mar 19, 2026, 5:30 PM UTC

bombcar wrote: post #795

testing22321 wrote: post #773

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Housing can not be both affordable and a good investment. If we want housing to be affordable ie “limit them increasing” we have to stop people using them as investments. There are many ways. My favourites are: - one human can own one residential property. No companies or businesses can. -or, property tax doubles (or 10x) with every residential property owned. - no foreign ownership (Canada does this now) - governmen…

It can be both affordable and an investment - it cannot (and will not) perpetually be a market-beating top-tier investment . All of the items above can have drastic unintended consequences; the way to keep prices affordable is to make sure that supply is always outstripping demand by a bit. Some examples of unintended consequences: * I can't add an ADU to my existing property which would add one more dwelling unit *…

At least in the US, up until the rise of 'flipping' and AirBnB home values typically tracked with inflation. Personally owned real estate was a hedge against inflation and a tax shelter, not an 'investment'.

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

#883

Post by Forgeties79 » Thu, Mar 19, 2026, 5:30 PM UTC

zozbot234 wrote: post #879

Forgeties79 wrote: post #874

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ALL housing increases supply/reduces market price. I can tell you firsthand that that is absolutely not true. The massive rush to renovate or build new short-term rentals in the 2010s had a disastrous impact on rental prices around my city, especially coupled with historically low interest rates that made these enterprises far less risky. It’s also incredibly disruptive to neighborhoods/communities, not just becaus…

Taxing short-term rentals would handily address these issues while still allowing people to derive some income from their otherwise vacant pieds-a-terre and vacation homes.

But that’s the thing, that’s not what these properties are generally here. These are homes bought in cash by developers in neighborhoods occupied by residents. People lived in these homes prior and somebody else would have likely bought and lived in it if they left.

When my wife and I were buying our first house we had two houses taken out from under us because somebody came in with an all cash bid tens of thousands higher than ours. Both are still Airbnb’s.

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

#884

Post by FuriouslyAdrift » Thu, Mar 19, 2026, 5:30 PM UTC

brazzy wrote: post #787

testing22321 wrote: post #773

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Housing can not be both affordable and a good investment. If we want housing to be affordable ie “limit them increasing” we have to stop people using them as investments. There are many ways. My favourites are: - one human can own one residential property. No companies or businesses can. -or, property tax doubles (or 10x) with every residential property owned. - no foreign ownership (Canada does this now) - governmen…

> one human can own one residential property. No companies or businesses can. So, in other words, you want everyone who cannot afford to outright buy a house to be homeless?

This is what apartments are for...

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

#885

Post by some_random » Thu, Mar 19, 2026, 5:32 PM UTC

kevstev wrote: post #857

some_random wrote: post #726

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not worth $3M because of the lot it sits on.

What is your mental model for this then? If the "2BR shack" can be built from scratch for 300k, and the value for the lot + shack is $3M, then the land value is $2.7M. Most expensive real estate is land value, not actual structure value.

I see what you're saying, my point is that the principle thing driving it's value isn't the land nor the shack, it's the regulatory framework of the area.

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

#886

Post by bpt3 » Thu, Mar 19, 2026, 5:35 PM UTC

estearum wrote: post #683

bpt3 wrote: post #662

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> Vacant land that's desirable is often held back from development due to zoning or infrastructure issues. Nah, it's mostly speculation. Zoning/infrastructure issues get baked into the price. If you cannot build anything on a plot of land, its price falls.

Until someone gets the zoning board to wave a magic wand and change the allowable uses of the property, and then it's a lot more valuable.

This happens all the time, and is a major reason why people will sit on land for extended periods of time.

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

#887

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Mar 19, 2026, 5:35 PM UTC

ambicapter wrote: post #821

zozbot234 wrote: post #605

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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.

You can assume higher density has "more crime" because the increase in people means if you want to keep the same absolute rate of crimes (which is the only thing people ever notice--every violent or sexual crime will be repeated in the news), you have to correspondingly increase the efficiency of crime-fighting, and American police aren't up to the task, even if they were motivated to do so.

[deleted]

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

#888

Post by zozbot234 » Thu, Mar 19, 2026, 5:36 PM UTC

Forgeties79 wrote: post #883

zozbot234 wrote: post #879

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Taxing short-term rentals would handily address these issues while still allowing people to derive some income from their otherwise vacant pieds-a-terre and vacation homes.

But that’s the thing, that’s not what these properties are generally here. These are homes bought in cash by developers in neighborhoods occupied by residents. People lived in these homes prior and somebody else would have likely bought and lived in it if they left. When my wife and I were buying our first house we had two houses taken out from under us because somebody came in with an all cash bid tens of thousands…

> These are homes bought in cash by developers in neighborhoods occupied by residents.

This happens because hotel accommodation is generally overpriced. But if you tax the airbnb rentals, it deters profit-minded developers from engaging in this practice, while still allowing it as a last resort for homes that cannot be rented long-term and would otherwise sit empty.

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

#889

Post by _1tiu » Thu, Mar 19, 2026, 5:39 PM 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…

The Netherlands is a different kind of environment because there is a calculated policy of not doing anything that could reduce home values. This trickles through all policies for any action that could meaningfully solve the housing crisis.

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

#890

Post by FuriouslyAdrift » Thu, Mar 19, 2026, 5:40 PM 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…

Yeah seriously... when I was dirt poor and hurting, I moved to Shreveport and was able to get by on minimum wage. There's plenty of places in the Deep South where one may live a decent life for moderate wages. Not everyone gets to live the life of Riley.