8 ms·

Austin was supposed to be the next big tech hub

24 points by ilamont 2y ago

coffeebeqn 2y ago
7.5% is crazy growth. There’s no way a real estate market survives that without spiraling upwards
- imposterr 2y ago
  And yet it's gone down. >Austin rents have come down 7 percent in the past year. from https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2024/03/austin-texas-rents-falling-housing/677819/ https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2024/03/austin-tex... Turns out actually building homes works :surprised_pikachu:.
  - serf 2y ago
    >Turns out actually building homes works :surprised_pikachu:. more like it turns out that having a wrongly-promised false market of endless real estate customers prompts municipalities to (over)-invest in the housing market. to our benefit this time, but let's call a cat a cat; it was due to over-provisioning based on incorrect future forecasts, not some altruistic political maneuver to benefit housing costs for residents; just a carrot for an audience of Austin hopefuls that eventually evaporated to the benefit of locals. Would this work elsewhere? Yeah, up until you hit the problems with excessive over-spending and waste of workforce -- which is to mean it's not a solution.
  - hi-v-rocknroll 2y ago
    My lease rate went down 40% in ATX. They're basically begging me to stay in the penthouse at this point. I won't because the neighbors here are disrespectful (loud - I can hear their howling and yapping dogs barking through the "concrete" floor at all hours of the day and night), let their dogs piss and shit all over the front of the building, and the people moving in are insanely ignorant, uncool, and anti-social.
- egberts1 2y ago
  Nope. Not growing that fast anymore. It is dipping down to 0% growth rate, listings up 19%, number of home sold is down 4%, and time-on-market is up 5% longer. https://orchard.com/homes/real-estate-market-report/city/tx/austin https://orchard.com/homes/real-estate-market-report/city/tx/...
jefflinwood 2y ago
Austin was supposed to be the next big tech hub since at least the late 90's and the dot-com boom/bust. I don't think the Oracle headquarters change makes a huge difference, but I did figure Twitter would move to Austin, and that hasn't happened yet.
- muzz 2y ago
  It's a designation on paper, essentially
oceanplexian 2y ago
I like how they try really hard to avoid mentioning Florida like it doesn’t exist. Florida has taken over all the top fastest growing metro areas.
- toomuchtodo 2y ago
  I recommend reviewing Florida’s residential real estate listing volume and trend. Recent movers walked right into a trap due to the insurance market collapsing at the same time the market was overbought. I owned investment properties in Central Florida and liquidated them all last year. Simply not worth the potential exposure to Category 6 hurricanes and $5k-$10k/year in property insurance, if you can even get it if your roof is older than ~10-15 years. Repairs post hurricane could take months, if not a year or more. https://www.newsweek.com/florida-homeowners-desperately-trying-move-out-1874173 https://www.newsweek.com/florida-homeowners-desperately-tryi... https://www.redfin.com/news/housing-market-tracker-march-2024/ https://www.redfin.com/news/housing-market-tracker-march-202... https://www.wusf.org/weather/2024-02-06/florida-stronger-hurricanes-climate-scientists-category-6 https://www.wusf.org/weather/2024-02-06/florida-stronger-hur... https://www.reuters.com/legal/legalindustry/5-trends-watch-2024-with-floridas-property-insurance-market-2024-02-22/ https://www.reuters.com/legal/legalindustry/5-trends-watch-2...
  - selimthegrim 2y ago
    Category 6 isn’t officially a thing yet.
    - toomuchtodo 2y ago
      Should I have waited to sell until it was? Not my bags to hold. The insurance industry is already forward looking in this regard (pricing snapping towards risk models), I’m just riding their coattails.
      - selimthegrim 2y ago
        I mean, the Florida state govt. doesn’t deserve your tax money so I salute you anyway.
xyst 2y ago
A part of the reason is also the highly toxic state leadership. - anti-LBGTQ+ - anti-abortion - anti-immigration - misappropriating state funds for partisan stunts [1] - recapture program designed to fund education in poorer areas of TX. But when it was overfunded one year, it went to balance the state budget [2] I love the city but the state leaves a bad taste in my mouth. [1] https://www.texastribune.org/2024/02/21/texas-migrants-busing-cost-greg-abbott/ https://www.texastribune.org/2024/02/21/texas-migrants-busin... [2] https://web.archive.org/web/20220212004001/https%3A%2F%2Fwww.kut.org%2Feducation%2F2022-02-11%2Faustin-isd-paid-hundreds-of-millions-more-than-other-districts-in-texas-recapture-program https://web.archive.org/web/20220212004001/https%3A%2F%2Fwww...
- exmicrosoldier 2y ago
  Regular power issues are also state government incompetence.
  - hi-v-rocknroll 2y ago
    ERCOT was shit during the 2021 snowpocalypse when my refrigerator and indoor air temperature both equalized to 47 F (8 C). Fast forward to 2024, they've improved considerably with enormous wind and solar deployments. Although near ATX downtown: my UPSes cycled on and off 5x today during heavy rain for no apparent reason other than inadequate protection of power lines or switchgear. What hasn't improved is the absurd level of deregulation that can result in surprise bills when local spot power prices go insane.
- hi-v-rocknroll 2y ago
  Just say it: There is a higher-than-average concentration of American-made ideology that's mostly ignorant with some downplayed hate: Christian white supremacy nationalism clinging to false beliefs like "America is a Christian country" and "Families require a man and a woman where the man is in-charge". The Oklahoma City bombing to the immediate north in OK was 100% home-grown terrorism.
  - Log_out_ 2y ago
felsokning 2y ago
Austin has had issues, long before the pandemic. In one example (in the 10's), the owner of the building that Unisys used to lease wanted to disproportionately increase the cost of the lease; it was so much so, that it was cheaper for Unisys to close the site and offer relocation to the workers (notably, New York being a favoured relocation site).[1] [1] - https://archive.is/dwQWh https://archive.is/dwQWh
- ekanes 2y ago
  That just sounds like the free market at work.
blt 2y ago
gosh, I wonder if there was anything else about Texas that changed in recent years that might make well-educated people from diverse cultures want to leave?
yareal 2y ago
There's a clear reason why - Texas has no interest in attracting well educated people. Well educated people tend to think through things like, "should we understand people have different lived experiences than me?" I'm sure Texas is great if you are a white, cishet, conservative man! I'm not so sure it's great if you aren't all those things.
- xeornet 2y ago
  I’m happy to be white, conservative and well educated. Stay in another state that’s more… culturally enriched.
  - yareal 2y ago
    What does that mean? Because it sure reads like a euphemism for "non white".
    - selimthegrim 2y ago
      These are people who, to put it politely, subscribe to Neil Stephenson’s thesis in “In the Beginning was the Command Line” I happen to think Stephenson was dead wrong, and his example of composite culture was a strawman, and I’m not the only person who does. Or, you know, they could just be racist.
      - xeornet 2y ago
        What? I was replying to the guy that essentially said that the people in Austin are white, Conservative and NON-educated. I went to on explain that there also educated white conservatives…
        selimthegrim 2y ago
        “Culturally enriched” is a common right wing dog whistle even if you didn’t mean it that way
- 2y ago
nunez 2y ago
Houston made so much more sense as the tech hub for Texas. Way bigger, two top tier universities (with UT Austin in reach), built for scale, and lots of money (albeit in the super conservative energy industry, though they are trying to diversify)
- yareal 2y ago
  It's not culturally aligned with tech workers like Austin is though. Austin has a reputation of being kinda a cool, funky city. Houston has the reputation of living in an armpit with shitty, car brained infrastructure.
  - nunez 2y ago
    Austin is also very car-brained, but worse because it's a small city that's vastly overgrown its borders. But, agree, Houston is an armpit.
- rurban 2y ago
  More Dallas which was historically the biggest Texas tech hub. And still is, still bigger than Austin
- selimthegrim 2y ago
  You can blame Tillman Fertitta for scotching another UT research campus because he didn’t want something to rival his precious University of Houston
atemerev 2y ago
To be a tech hub, you need: - top-tier universities - a history of successful knowledge transfer projects between the academia and the industry - access to capital (so you need to cater to these VC types and offer them something they want) - have a well-connected airport nearby - have some interesting people already living there (not necessarily tech-minded) - be reasonably pro-immigration Boston, NYC and DC, if somehow merged into one city, could fit the bill. None of them by their own can. And nobody else except Bay area, of course.
black_13 2y ago
[dead]

24 points by ilamont 2y ago

coffeebeqn 2y ago

7.5% is crazy growth. There’s no way a real estate market survives that without spiraling upwards

imposterr 2y ago
And yet it's gone down. >Austin rents have come down 7 percent in the past year. from https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2024/03/austin-texas-rents-falling-housing/677819/ https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2024/03/austin-tex... Turns out actually building homes works :surprised_pikachu:.
- serf 2y ago
  >Turns out actually building homes works :surprised_pikachu:. more like it turns out that having a wrongly-promised false market of endless real estate customers prompts municipalities to (over)-invest in the housing market. to our benefit this time, but let's call a cat a cat; it was due to over-provisioning based on incorrect future forecasts, not some altruistic political maneuver to benefit housing costs for residents; just a carrot for an audience of Austin hopefuls that eventually evaporated to the benefit of locals. Would this work elsewhere? Yeah, up until you hit the problems with excessive over-spending and waste of workforce -- which is to mean it's not a solution.
- hi-v-rocknroll 2y ago
  My lease rate went down 40% in ATX. They're basically begging me to stay in the penthouse at this point. I won't because the neighbors here are disrespectful (loud - I can hear their howling and yapping dogs barking through the "concrete" floor at all hours of the day and night), let their dogs piss and shit all over the front of the building, and the people moving in are insanely ignorant, uncool, and anti-social.
egberts1 2y ago
Nope. Not growing that fast anymore. It is dipping down to 0% growth rate, listings up 19%, number of home sold is down 4%, and time-on-market is up 5% longer. https://orchard.com/homes/real-estate-market-report/city/tx/austin https://orchard.com/homes/real-estate-market-report/city/tx/...

jefflinwood 2y ago

Austin was supposed to be the next big tech hub since at least the late 90's and the dot-com boom/bust. I don't think the Oracle headquarters change makes a huge difference, but I did figure Twitter would move to Austin, and that hasn't happened yet.

muzz 2y ago
It's a designation on paper, essentially

oceanplexian 2y ago

I like how they try really hard to avoid mentioning Florida like it doesn’t exist. Florida has taken over all the top fastest growing metro areas.

toomuchtodo 2y ago
I recommend reviewing Florida’s residential real estate listing volume and trend. Recent movers walked right into a trap due to the insurance market collapsing at the same time the market was overbought. I owned investment properties in Central Florida and liquidated them all last year. Simply not worth the potential exposure to Category 6 hurricanes and $5k-$10k/year in property insurance, if you can even get it if your roof is older than ~10-15 years. Repairs post hurricane could take months, if not a year or more. https://www.newsweek.com/florida-homeowners-desperately-trying-move-out-1874173 https://www.newsweek.com/florida-homeowners-desperately-tryi... https://www.redfin.com/news/housing-market-tracker-march-2024/ https://www.redfin.com/news/housing-market-tracker-march-202... https://www.wusf.org/weather/2024-02-06/florida-stronger-hurricanes-climate-scientists-category-6 https://www.wusf.org/weather/2024-02-06/florida-stronger-hur... https://www.reuters.com/legal/legalindustry/5-trends-watch-2024-with-floridas-property-insurance-market-2024-02-22/ https://www.reuters.com/legal/legalindustry/5-trends-watch-2...
- selimthegrim 2y ago
  Category 6 isn’t officially a thing yet.
  - toomuchtodo 2y ago
    Should I have waited to sell until it was? Not my bags to hold. The insurance industry is already forward looking in this regard (pricing snapping towards risk models), I’m just riding their coattails.
    - selimthegrim 2y ago
      I mean, the Florida state govt. doesn’t deserve your tax money so I salute you anyway.

xyst 2y ago

A part of the reason is also the highly toxic state leadership. - anti-LBGTQ+ - anti-abortion - anti-immigration - misappropriating state funds for partisan stunts [1] - recapture program designed to fund education in poorer areas of TX. But when it was overfunded one year, it went to balance the state budget [2] I love the city but the state leaves a bad taste in my mouth. [1] https://www.texastribune.org/2024/02/21/texas-migrants-busing-cost-greg-abbott/ https://www.texastribune.org/2024/02/21/texas-migrants-busin... [2] https://web.archive.org/web/20220212004001/https%3A%2F%2Fwww.kut.org%2Feducation%2F2022-02-11%2Faustin-isd-paid-hundreds-of-millions-more-than-other-districts-in-texas-recapture-program https://web.archive.org/web/20220212004001/https%3A%2F%2Fwww...

exmicrosoldier 2y ago
Regular power issues are also state government incompetence.
- hi-v-rocknroll 2y ago
  ERCOT was shit during the 2021 snowpocalypse when my refrigerator and indoor air temperature both equalized to 47 F (8 C). Fast forward to 2024, they've improved considerably with enormous wind and solar deployments. Although near ATX downtown: my UPSes cycled on and off 5x today during heavy rain for no apparent reason other than inadequate protection of power lines or switchgear. What hasn't improved is the absurd level of deregulation that can result in surprise bills when local spot power prices go insane.
hi-v-rocknroll 2y ago
Just say it: There is a higher-than-average concentration of American-made ideology that's mostly ignorant with some downplayed hate: Christian white supremacy nationalism clinging to false beliefs like "America is a Christian country" and "Families require a man and a woman where the man is in-charge". The Oklahoma City bombing to the immediate north in OK was 100% home-grown terrorism.
- Log_out_ 2y ago

felsokning 2y ago

Austin has had issues, long before the pandemic. In one example (in the 10's), the owner of the building that Unisys used to lease wanted to disproportionately increase the cost of the lease; it was so much so, that it was cheaper for Unisys to close the site and offer relocation to the workers (notably, New York being a favoured relocation site).[1] [1] - https://archive.is/dwQWh https://archive.is/dwQWh

ekanes 2y ago
That just sounds like the free market at work.

blt 2y ago

gosh, I wonder if there was anything else about Texas that changed in recent years that might make well-educated people from diverse cultures want to leave?

yareal 2y ago

There's a clear reason why - Texas has no interest in attracting well educated people. Well educated people tend to think through things like, "should we understand people have different lived experiences than me?" I'm sure Texas is great if you are a white, cishet, conservative man! I'm not so sure it's great if you aren't all those things.

xeornet 2y ago
I’m happy to be white, conservative and well educated. Stay in another state that’s more… culturally enriched.
- yareal 2y ago
  What does that mean? Because it sure reads like a euphemism for "non white".
  - selimthegrim 2y ago
    These are people who, to put it politely, subscribe to Neil Stephenson’s thesis in “In the Beginning was the Command Line” I happen to think Stephenson was dead wrong, and his example of composite culture was a strawman, and I’m not the only person who does. Or, you know, they could just be racist.
    - xeornet 2y ago
      What? I was replying to the guy that essentially said that the people in Austin are white, Conservative and NON-educated. I went to on explain that there also educated white conservatives…
      - selimthegrim 2y ago
        “Culturally enriched” is a common right wing dog whistle even if you didn’t mean it that way
2y ago

nunez 2y ago

Houston made so much more sense as the tech hub for Texas. Way bigger, two top tier universities (with UT Austin in reach), built for scale, and lots of money (albeit in the super conservative energy industry, though they are trying to diversify)

yareal 2y ago
It's not culturally aligned with tech workers like Austin is though. Austin has a reputation of being kinda a cool, funky city. Houston has the reputation of living in an armpit with shitty, car brained infrastructure.
- nunez 2y ago
  Austin is also very car-brained, but worse because it's a small city that's vastly overgrown its borders. But, agree, Houston is an armpit.
rurban 2y ago
More Dallas which was historically the biggest Texas tech hub. And still is, still bigger than Austin
selimthegrim 2y ago
You can blame Tillman Fertitta for scotching another UT research campus because he didn’t want something to rival his precious University of Houston

atemerev 2y ago

To be a tech hub, you need: - top-tier universities - a history of successful knowledge transfer projects between the academia and the industry - access to capital (so you need to cater to these VC types and offer them something they want) - have a well-connected airport nearby - have some interesting people already living there (not necessarily tech-minded) - be reasonably pro-immigration Boston, NYC and DC, if somehow merged into one city, could fit the bill. None of them by their own can. And nobody else except Bay area, of course.

black_13 2y ago

[dead]