4 ms·
First, I mentioned regions, and do be clear, I'm referring to regions - Thats the point, there is a point where is does reach equilibrium and the price of lower
by Aloha 4y ago
First, I mentioned regions, and do be clear, I'm referring to regions - Thats the point, there is a point where is does reach equilibrium and the price of lower tier and less desirable housing starts to fall.
The Bay Area has 7m people in it, SF proper 800k, you could grow the number of housing units by 10% every decade, or less - and it's more than feasible. Seattle Metro is 4m people, and Portland is 2m. That works out to 700k housing units in SF Bay, 400k in Seattle Metro and 200k in Portland Metro - those while seemingly giant numbers are absolutely feasible to build.
Why do you think Houston is so cheap to live in? or for that matter DFW? one, we have 100 miles of prairie in every direction to build in, so building is cheap - two, we impose few structural barriers to prevent new construction.
- seanmcdirmid 4y agoThey aren’t really though. Labor is limited, material production is limited, there is a lot of supply and demand going on that can drive up prices. You can’t magic away those costs. Houston is cheap to live in because it simply isn’t a place that a lot of people want to live. Young people who dream of Texas dream of living in Austin, not Houston or Dallas. That puts growth on Austin, stoking supply and demand, whereas Dallas and Houston are growing much more slowly. If you want affordable housing and are happy not living in a hot/popular location, things get much easier.
- Aloha 4y agoAs far as I can tell based on the statistics I can find, both DFW and Houston have built around 50% more housing in a given year than Austin over a 20 year period.
- seanmcdirmid 4y agoThe only data I can find is here, which is regional: https://theamericangenius.com/housing/big-data/these-50-us-cities-have-the-most-new-construction-homes/ https://theamericangenius.com/housing/big-data/these-50-us-c... Austin is at 11 with 150k housing starts, Dallas is first at 320k starts for SFHs, 133k vs 233k for MFH. Austin is growing at 25%, Dallas at 15%. But Dallas area is 7.6 million vs Austin Area at 2.35 million. So while Dallas is building more in absolute terms, it isn’t in relative terms.
- Aloha 4y agoBoth are growing their hosing stock by between 5-11% of their population. How many more houses would Portland metro, Seattle or SF bay have to build to match?
- seanmcdirmid 4y agoSeattle is just behind Austin on the list, and ranks just above it in population (4 million). Seattle is already more than twice as dense as either Austin or Dallas (9000 per sqm vs 3000-4000 per sqm).