5 ms·

With such little regulation, I would have guessed housing supply would be really great and prices quite affordable. But the Houston metro area is barely below

With such little regulation, I would have guessed housing supply would be really great and prices quite affordable. But the Houston metro area is barely below the national median for house prices.

chomp 4y ago
They were affordable-ish... I don't have insight into the market, other than we're building like crazy and it's still not enough: https://www.houstonpublicmedia.org/articles/housing/2022/10/07/434698/report-houston-led-nation-in-apartment-construction-during-first-half-of-2022/ https://www.houstonpublicmedia.org/articles/housing/2022/10/... I suspect some of this is market moves (e.g. people moving into apartments during COVID, and business relocations: https://www.houstonpublicmedia.org/articles/news/business/2021/10/22/411596/texas-apartment-rentals-are-booming-driving-up-the-costs-to-tenants-by-double-digits/ https://www.houstonpublicmedia.org/articles/news/business/20...).
Waterluvian 4y ago
I would expect the YOLO housing and environment approach to never be about equality and affordability. I would expect it to be a signal that NIMBYism is through the roof and that they have the regulatory power to inflate prices.
lettergram 4y ago
I’m always shocked that people think supply is the issue… People will live in the best place they can afford. This means prices will always be driven by the income level of people in the area. If you suddenly built more housing in SF. You’ll actually just get more people who can afford to live in SF moving there. That’ll drive the prices right back to where they were. Demand would have to drop, while you expand supply. Remove tech jobs from SF and demand will drop, lowering prices. If enough external people don’t wish to move there and you’re building, then prices drop. Effectively, demand always massively outstrips supply for living accommodations As a thought exercise: imagine it was $100/month to live in a 3Bed, 2Br house in Houston. You’d have 100m people want to move there. Keep moving that number up, at some point you’ll get supply and demand meeting. If you add 1000 new houses, it’ll barely impact demand because you’ll have 1000 people willing to move for a $50/month reduction in cost. Then prices will be right back where they started. Unless you can build 10k units or 100k units prices won’t meaningfully change from supply side factors alone.
- jandrese 4y ago
  I’m not sure I agree with your final conclusion while cities like Flint and Detroit exist.
  - caseysoftware 4y ago
    That's simply running the thought experiment the other direction: There are places where you could lower the cost of living to zero and people still wouldn't move there. Alaska effectively goes further by paying people to live there with their Permanent Fund - https://pfd.alaska.gov/ https://pfd.alaska.gov/ - where they give residents an annual dividend based on oil proceeds. But Kansas and other places have done the same offering to pay remote people $10k to move there.
  - NegativeLatency 4y ago
    Or European cities with reasonable rent.
- endisneigh 4y ago
  This is so massively wrong I don't even know where to begin.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- woodruffw 4y ago
  > People will live in the best place they can afford. This is an overly simplified view of demand. People with live in the best place among the places they want to live. That’s why we see strong selection along political and cultural dimensions, even when they correlate weakly (or even negatively) with purchasing power.
- aclatuts 4y ago
  If it's not a supply-side issue, it should be fine to bulldoze 100k units while everything remains the same, and the prices shouldn't change at all.
hn_throwaway_99 4y ago
> But the Houston metro area is barely below the national median for house prices. That seems unsurprising, and not sure it's a good metric. Houston is certainly much cheaper than, for example, Austin, and my guess is that it is considerably cheaper than similar sized metros. I can't find it right now, but I remember reading an article from a few years back that basically called Houston the best city to live if you are poor. That is, don't just look at median prices, but Houston actually has a ton of affordable housing that is simply non-existent (or highly restricted in stupid lottery games) in other cities.
- pfraze 4y ago
  This is mostly accurate from what I've seen, but if you were willing to go as far out from the Austin city center as Houston's natural sprawl goes, you would probably get comparable home prices.
  - nilkn 4y ago
    This is a very good point that often gets overlooked. Empty lots in desirable inner loop Houston neighborhoods cost $1M. That's not really any different from Austin.
    - JamesBarney 4y ago
      Every large city has a desirable neighborhood with million dollar lots. But if you look at # of houses within 15 minutes of downtown that cost less than 200k. Houston is one of few that's still affordable.
  - JamesBarney 4y ago
    This is a fun off the cuff guess but if you look at a Zillow it's not true. Houses the same distance from the center of town are significantly more expensive in Austin. Everyone I know who moved from Houston to Austin moved twice as far from downtown and paid twice as much to do it.
    - 4y ago
simonsarris 4y ago
I haven't looked at the numbers but a popular and growing city being below median price?! Surely that is exceptional, probably unique for the USA or anywhere for that matter.
bogomipz 4y ago
Well, nearly every metro went off the rails in terms of availability/affordability since the pandemic. For many years Houston was much more affordable than the national average. 2010 seems to have been the inflection point. See the first House Price Index graph here: https://www.understandinghouston.org/topic/housing/home-affordability/#growing_home_values https://www.understandinghouston.org/topic/housing/home-affo...
kansface 4y ago
I've read that Houston isn't regulation free per se. Zoning was mostly replaced with neighbor associations of one sort or another which are just as restrictive with regard to dense development.
- foobarian 4y ago
  I wonder what the scale involved is, and if compared to say Boston, the neighbor associations overlay roughly onto the suburb towns that all have highly customized regulations.
  - grepfru_it 4y ago
    It depends on the area. Most go back to when the area was developed, some of them were voted into an association (eg historic heights), others are simply drawn at class lines (river oaks is entirely an association). The lines are really arbitrary. My house has a very minimal neighborhood restriction (no commercial front businesses) while my neighbors a few blocks away are required to maintain sidewalks, upkeep of yard, etc. Condos and townhomes obviously have HOAs as well. I believe a complete tear down is the only way to part ways with a deed restriction (which is why historic homes being remodeled are sometimes razed in the middle of the night)
  - ghaff 4y ago
    Draw a radius outside of Boston/Cambridge for an hour drive (not in rush hour traffic--where many of the jobs are anyway) and there are many housing prices that are pretty reasonable. Not depressed ex-steel city in the Midwest reasonable but $300K for a single family home reasonable. And this gets into pretty rural areas without a lot of regulations. Of course, many especially closer in towns are much more regulated.
TulliusCicero 4y ago
Being below the national median is great for a large, growing metro. Check every other large, economically booming metro area and see what their housing prices are in comparison. I know the last time I checked, Dallas was substantially more expensive, and that city seems like the most obvious comparison to make. Even without traditional zoning, housing supply is somewhat land constrained, since building further up gets more and more expensive as you go higher. It still helps to be able to build higher, but it's not a panacea that will solve all housing cost problems.
twobitshifter 4y ago
I don’t think that’s right, https://www.realestatewitch.com/25-most-affordable-cities-for-housing/ https://www.realestatewitch.com/25-most-affordable-cities-fo... This lists Houston as 19th on affordability and a price of $247,000
JamesBarney 4y ago
New York, New York – 8,467,513 - 450k Los Angeles, California – 3,849,297 - 710k Chicago, Illinois – 2,696,555 - 252k Houston, Texas – 2,288,250 - 192k Phoenix, Arizona – 1,624,569 - 308k Philadelphia, Pennsylvania – 1,576,251 - 240k San Antonio, Texas – 1,451,853 - 175k San Diego, California – 1,381,611 - 620k Dallas, Texas – 1,288,457 - 225k San Jose, California – 983,489 - 1,160k Compared to a town with 100k people in Wisconsin Houston doesn't look very affordable. But compared to the top 10 largest cities in the US it looks pretty good. [0] - https://www.kiplinger.com/article/real-estate/t010-c000-s002-home-price-changes-in-the-100-largest-metro-areas.html https://www.kiplinger.com/article/real-estate/t010-c000-s002...

With such little regulation, I would have guessed housing supply would be really great and prices quite affordable. But the Houston metro area is barely below the national median for house prices.

chomp 4y ago

They were affordable-ish... I don't have insight into the market, other than we're building like crazy and it's still not enough: https://www.houstonpublicmedia.org/articles/housing/2022/10/07/434698/report-houston-led-nation-in-apartment-construction-during-first-half-of-2022/ https://www.houstonpublicmedia.org/articles/housing/2022/10/... I suspect some of this is market moves (e.g. people moving into apartments during COVID, and business relocations: https://www.houstonpublicmedia.org/articles/news/business/2021/10/22/411596/texas-apartment-rentals-are-booming-driving-up-the-costs-to-tenants-by-double-digits/ https://www.houstonpublicmedia.org/articles/news/business/20...).

Waterluvian 4y ago

I would expect the YOLO housing and environment approach to never be about equality and affordability. I would expect it to be a signal that NIMBYism is through the roof and that they have the regulatory power to inflate prices.

lettergram 4y ago

I’m always shocked that people think supply is the issue… People will live in the best place they can afford. This means prices will always be driven by the income level of people in the area. If you suddenly built more housing in SF. You’ll actually just get more people who can afford to live in SF moving there. That’ll drive the prices right back to where they were. Demand would have to drop, while you expand supply. Remove tech jobs from SF and demand will drop, lowering prices. If enough external people don’t wish to move there and you’re building, then prices drop. Effectively, demand always massively outstrips supply for living accommodations As a thought exercise: imagine it was $100/month to live in a 3Bed, 2Br house in Houston. You’d have 100m people want to move there. Keep moving that number up, at some point you’ll get supply and demand meeting. If you add 1000 new houses, it’ll barely impact demand because you’ll have 1000 people willing to move for a $50/month reduction in cost. Then prices will be right back where they started. Unless you can build 10k units or 100k units prices won’t meaningfully change from supply side factors alone.

jandrese 4y ago
I’m not sure I agree with your final conclusion while cities like Flint and Detroit exist.
- caseysoftware 4y ago
  That's simply running the thought experiment the other direction: There are places where you could lower the cost of living to zero and people still wouldn't move there. Alaska effectively goes further by paying people to live there with their Permanent Fund - https://pfd.alaska.gov/ https://pfd.alaska.gov/ - where they give residents an annual dividend based on oil proceeds. But Kansas and other places have done the same offering to pay remote people $10k to move there.
- NegativeLatency 4y ago
  Or European cities with reasonable rent.
endisneigh 4y ago
This is so massively wrong I don't even know where to begin.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
woodruffw 4y ago
> People will live in the best place they can afford. This is an overly simplified view of demand. People with live in the best place among the places they want to live. That’s why we see strong selection along political and cultural dimensions, even when they correlate weakly (or even negatively) with purchasing power.
aclatuts 4y ago
If it's not a supply-side issue, it should be fine to bulldoze 100k units while everything remains the same, and the prices shouldn't change at all.

hn_throwaway_99 4y ago

> But the Houston metro area is barely below the national median for house prices. That seems unsurprising, and not sure it's a good metric. Houston is certainly much cheaper than, for example, Austin, and my guess is that it is considerably cheaper than similar sized metros. I can't find it right now, but I remember reading an article from a few years back that basically called Houston the best city to live if you are poor. That is, don't just look at median prices, but Houston actually has a ton of affordable housing that is simply non-existent (or highly restricted in stupid lottery games) in other cities.

pfraze 4y ago
This is mostly accurate from what I've seen, but if you were willing to go as far out from the Austin city center as Houston's natural sprawl goes, you would probably get comparable home prices.
- nilkn 4y ago
  This is a very good point that often gets overlooked. Empty lots in desirable inner loop Houston neighborhoods cost $1M. That's not really any different from Austin.
  - JamesBarney 4y ago
    Every large city has a desirable neighborhood with million dollar lots. But if you look at # of houses within 15 minutes of downtown that cost less than 200k. Houston is one of few that's still affordable.
- JamesBarney 4y ago
  This is a fun off the cuff guess but if you look at a Zillow it's not true. Houses the same distance from the center of town are significantly more expensive in Austin. Everyone I know who moved from Houston to Austin moved twice as far from downtown and paid twice as much to do it.
  - 4y ago

simonsarris 4y ago

I haven't looked at the numbers but a popular and growing city being below median price?! Surely that is exceptional, probably unique for the USA or anywhere for that matter.

bogomipz 4y ago

Well, nearly every metro went off the rails in terms of availability/affordability since the pandemic. For many years Houston was much more affordable than the national average. 2010 seems to have been the inflection point. See the first House Price Index graph here: https://www.understandinghouston.org/topic/housing/home-affordability/#growing_home_values https://www.understandinghouston.org/topic/housing/home-affo...

kansface 4y ago

I've read that Houston isn't regulation free per se. Zoning was mostly replaced with neighbor associations of one sort or another which are just as restrictive with regard to dense development.

foobarian 4y ago
I wonder what the scale involved is, and if compared to say Boston, the neighbor associations overlay roughly onto the suburb towns that all have highly customized regulations.
- grepfru_it 4y ago
  It depends on the area. Most go back to when the area was developed, some of them were voted into an association (eg historic heights), others are simply drawn at class lines (river oaks is entirely an association). The lines are really arbitrary. My house has a very minimal neighborhood restriction (no commercial front businesses) while my neighbors a few blocks away are required to maintain sidewalks, upkeep of yard, etc. Condos and townhomes obviously have HOAs as well. I believe a complete tear down is the only way to part ways with a deed restriction (which is why historic homes being remodeled are sometimes razed in the middle of the night)
- ghaff 4y ago
  Draw a radius outside of Boston/Cambridge for an hour drive (not in rush hour traffic--where many of the jobs are anyway) and there are many housing prices that are pretty reasonable. Not depressed ex-steel city in the Midwest reasonable but $300K for a single family home reasonable. And this gets into pretty rural areas without a lot of regulations. Of course, many especially closer in towns are much more regulated.

TulliusCicero 4y ago

Being below the national median is great for a large, growing metro. Check every other large, economically booming metro area and see what their housing prices are in comparison. I know the last time I checked, Dallas was substantially more expensive, and that city seems like the most obvious comparison to make. Even without traditional zoning, housing supply is somewhat land constrained, since building further up gets more and more expensive as you go higher. It still helps to be able to build higher, but it's not a panacea that will solve all housing cost problems.

twobitshifter 4y ago

I don’t think that’s right, https://www.realestatewitch.com/25-most-affordable-cities-for-housing/ https://www.realestatewitch.com/25-most-affordable-cities-fo... This lists Houston as 19th on affordability and a price of $247,000

JamesBarney 4y ago

New York, New York – 8,467,513 - 450k Los Angeles, California – 3,849,297 - 710k Chicago, Illinois – 2,696,555 - 252k Houston, Texas – 2,288,250 - 192k Phoenix, Arizona – 1,624,569 - 308k Philadelphia, Pennsylvania – 1,576,251 - 240k San Antonio, Texas – 1,451,853 - 175k San Diego, California – 1,381,611 - 620k Dallas, Texas – 1,288,457 - 225k San Jose, California – 983,489 - 1,160k Compared to a town with 100k people in Wisconsin Houston doesn't look very affordable. But compared to the top 10 largest cities in the US it looks pretty good. [0] - https://www.kiplinger.com/article/real-estate/t010-c000-s002-home-price-changes-in-the-100-largest-metro-areas.html https://www.kiplinger.com/article/real-estate/t010-c000-s002...