5 ms·

I feel like 50% of that is explained by the luxury housing build out bubble in Austin specifically.

etchalon 10mo ago
We just overbuilt everything. Condos, houses, etc. There's a lot of inventory no matter what type of housing you're looking for.
- cantaloupe 10mo ago
  The academic consensus is that there is a housing shortage, not a surplus. Perhaps there is a local surplus in undesirable areas, but that isn’t true in cities or nationally. https://www.brookings.edu/articles/make-it-count-measuring-our-housing-supply-shortage/ https://www.brookings.edu/articles/make-it-count-measuring-o...
  - nemomarx 10mo ago
    Austin and Texas in general have less housing restrictions than other places wrt zoning and regulation, so they could plausibly have a surplus. You can only really speak locally about any of this because location determines the market
- qball 10mo ago
  No, you just happened to build appropriately because a certain subfaction of the population weren't able to pass the typical laws that would stop building. The housing shortage was created by regulation and it's foolish or selfish to pretend otherwise. Austin is unique in that most of the harmful self-serving conservatism-as-in-block-and-deny-all-development that city people usually to do is constrained by the rest of the state, and as an obvious result arguably has the highest standard of living in the entire world.
  - awesome_dude 10mo ago
    kind of.. and kind of not regulation /tends/ to be introduced because builders are misbehaving (bad materials, bad workmanship, building in flood zones, etc), but the bigger problem is NIMBY who then use those laws to prevent other people building in "their" neighbourhood
    - greenie_beans 10mo ago
      it's the market dynamics that create under building, not regulations. if regulations are the problem, then how were builders able to build record number housing starts leading up the GFC? and after the crash, housing starts dramatically lowered. were there new regulations introduced during that time period?
  - etchalon 10mo ago
    That's fair. "Overbuilt" was probably the wrong term. But yeah, we built a LOT of housing and that means buyers and renters have a lot of choice. It's hard to argue that's a bad thing unless you're a property owner who's upset their house didn't appreciate 20% in 5 years.
    - nwah1 10mo ago
      >It's hard to argue that's a bad thing unless you're a property owner who's upset their house didn't appreciate 20% in 5 years. I want money for nothin', and chicks for free
  - QuercusMax 10mo ago
    highest standard of living unless you're a woman or a trans person, or a person of color, you mean. I'm sure living in a repressive dictatorship is awesome if you're a rich member of the in-group.

We just overbuilt everything. Condos, houses, etc. There's a lot of inventory no matter what type of housing you're looking for.

cantaloupe 10mo ago
The academic consensus is that there is a housing shortage, not a surplus. Perhaps there is a local surplus in undesirable areas, but that isn’t true in cities or nationally. https://www.brookings.edu/articles/make-it-count-measuring-our-housing-supply-shortage/ https://www.brookings.edu/articles/make-it-count-measuring-o...
- nemomarx 10mo ago
  Austin and Texas in general have less housing restrictions than other places wrt zoning and regulation, so they could plausibly have a surplus. You can only really speak locally about any of this because location determines the market
qball 10mo ago
No, you just happened to build appropriately because a certain subfaction of the population weren't able to pass the typical laws that would stop building. The housing shortage was created by regulation and it's foolish or selfish to pretend otherwise. Austin is unique in that most of the harmful self-serving conservatism-as-in-block-and-deny-all-development that city people usually to do is constrained by the rest of the state, and as an obvious result arguably has the highest standard of living in the entire world.
- awesome_dude 10mo ago
  kind of.. and kind of not regulation /tends/ to be introduced because builders are misbehaving (bad materials, bad workmanship, building in flood zones, etc), but the bigger problem is NIMBY who then use those laws to prevent other people building in "their" neighbourhood
  - greenie_beans 10mo ago
    it's the market dynamics that create under building, not regulations. if regulations are the problem, then how were builders able to build record number housing starts leading up the GFC? and after the crash, housing starts dramatically lowered. were there new regulations introduced during that time period?
- etchalon 10mo ago
  That's fair. "Overbuilt" was probably the wrong term. But yeah, we built a LOT of housing and that means buyers and renters have a lot of choice. It's hard to argue that's a bad thing unless you're a property owner who's upset their house didn't appreciate 20% in 5 years.
  - nwah1 10mo ago
    >It's hard to argue that's a bad thing unless you're a property owner who's upset their house didn't appreciate 20% in 5 years. I want money for nothin', and chicks for free
- QuercusMax 10mo ago
  highest standard of living unless you're a woman or a trans person, or a person of color, you mean. I'm sure living in a repressive dictatorship is awesome if you're a rich member of the in-group.