Austin, TX

Rents in the Austin area have been falling for a year

Published

3 months ago

June 13, 2024

Rents in the Austin area have been falling for a year

To draw the picture of Austin rent prices over the past several years is to trace a dizzying mountain — up, up, up. And then a slope. A small slope, but a slope. Down. Not up.

For the past year, the average price of rent in the Austin area has been falling. Rent prices have decreased by about 6% year over year. The average monthly rent is now $1,528 for an apartment any size, down $100 a month from last year.

According to data from Zillow, this is the longest sustained drop in rent prices in the past decade.

“It’s bad for landlords and it’s great for tenants,” said Jake Wegmann, a real estate professor at the University of Texas at Austin. “We should be happy about this.”

The cause? A surge in apartment building and a drop in the number of people moving to the area.

“During the pandemic we saw all of this demand and developers said, ‘We need to build,’” said Ali Wolf, chief economist at Zonda, a company that tracks home construction data.

Tens of thousands of people moved to Austin in the early years of the pandemic. Many could work from home, while others could afford to leave shared living situations and look for their own apartments. In response, rent prices rose at an incredible pace. To developers this indicated a need: more homes. In 2022, developers started building about 40,000 new apartments, more than they had in any subsequent year.

While the population surge that defined Austin in 2020 and 2021 has since slowed, tens of thousands of new apartments are still opening. That’s because of the nature of construction; typically, several years pass between breaking ground on a new building and opening apartments to renters.

What typically happens when developers start building a significant number of new rental homes is that prices drop, Wegmann said, but often only among the most expensive apartments. But there are so many new apartments in Austin that prices are falling across a spectrum of buildings, from apartment complexes with gyms and pools to buildings built half a century ago and beset with much-needed repairs.

The average rent price for these older apartments is down 9% over the past year, according to data from the firm MRI Software.

“This is like adding chairs to the music chairs game,” Wegmann said. “You end up with more and more empty chairs, which give people looking for apartments more choices. Their landlords have to cut rents to fill apartment buildings.”

But both Wegmann and Wolf cautioned that falling rent prices does not equate to more affordable rent. In the year leading up to falling rents in Austin, prices surged by nearly 20%.

A study from the Harvard University Joint Center for Housing Studies found that in 2022, nearly half of all renters living in Austin and the surrounding counties spent more than a third of their income on rent, a metric many experts agree is unaffordable. Rent prices in Austin began falling a year later.

As for whether rents could continue to drop, Wolf said yes.

“This one feels like to me one of the easier crystal balls to answer,” she said. A large number of new apartments are still under construction, and when they open to renters that means more supply of housing. “As we look at the next year, [falling rents are] almost a guarantee.”

But as rents drop, so does the income for developers and the incentive to build. Wegmann said builders are already halting some projects, a trend likely to continue.

“We’re gonna certainly see a retrenchment,” he said. “We’re going to see way fewer projects starting over the next couple of years … That’s capitalism!”

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Austin, TX

Pedro Vite scores 1st goal of season as Whitecaps beat Austin 1-0

Published

6 hours ago

September 1, 2024

Press Room

Pedro Vite scores 1st goal of season as Whitecaps beat Austin 1-0

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Pedro Vite scored his first goal of the season and Vancouver didn’t concede a shot on goal Saturday night as the Whitecaps beat Austin FC 1-0.

Vite played a one-touch pass to Ryan Guald, who returned the favor to a darting Vite for a first-timer from the top of the penalty arc that gave Vancouver a 1-0 lead in the 70th minute.

Brad Stuver had four saves for Austin (9-10-7).

Vancouver (12-8-5) had a five-game unbeaten streak — including four wins — snapped by a 4-3 home loss to the Houston Dynamo last time out.

The Whitecaps are 5-1-2 all time against Austin.

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AP MLS: https://apnews.com/hub/major-league-soccer

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Austin, TX

Ewers throws 3 TD passes to help No. 4 Texas roll over Colorado State 52-0 in opener

Published

16 hours ago

August 31, 2024

Press Room

Ewers throws 3 TD passes to help No. 4 Texas roll over Colorado State 52-0 in opener

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Quinn Ewers passed for 260 yards and three touchdowns and No. 4 Texas rolled past Colorado State 52-0 on Saturday in the opener for both teams.

Ewers connected with Matthew Golden for a pair of touchdowns in the second quarter, and had another strike to Isaiah Bond as the Longhorns built a 31-0 lead by halftime.

A big question for Texas heading into this season was just how quickly Ewers and Texas would find their rhythm in a passing attack that lost the top five receivers from the 2023 Big 12 championship team. Texas joined the Southeastern Conference this year.

Golden transferred from Houston and Bond from Alabama, and Ewers and his rebuilt receiving corps easily carved up the Rams. After a slow start that included a stalled drive and an interception on Texas’ first three possessions, Texas scored 24 points in the second quarter.

Ewers spread passes around 10 different receiving and had 248 yards passing by halftime. He completed 20 of 27 passes before leaving the game for Arch Manning midway through the third quarter.

Manning’s first drive started with a 40-yard pass to Johntay Cook II. It ended with Manning’s first career TD pass, a scrambling 5-yard toss to Silas Bolden, another transfer from Oregon State, that made it 45-0.

The takeaway

Colorado State: The Rams have an elite receiver in Tory Horton, but he shut down by a smothering Texas defense. Horton had five catches for 31 yards and the only deep ball thrown his way was intercepted. Colorado State did not cross the Texas 49 until the final two minutes.

Texas: Coming off last season’s appearance in the College Football Playoff, Texas has its highest season-opening ranking since 2010 and Saturday was a breeze against the overmatched Rams. The lofty ranking and expectations will be put to the test next week at No. 9 Michigan, and later when the Longhorns eventually start their first Southeastern Conference schedule against Mississippi State on Sept. 28.

Up next

Colorado State: Hosts Northern Colorado on Sept. 7

Texas: At No. 9 Michigan on Sept. 7 in the first matchup between the two historic powerhouse programs since the 2004 Rose Bowl.

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Get poll alerts and updates on the AP Top 25 throughout the season. Sign up here. AP college football: https://apnews.com/hub/ap-top-25-college-football-poll and https://apnews.com/hub/college-football

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Austin, TX

Residents in Austin neighborhood concerned about crime as police department struggles with understaffing

Published

1 day ago

August 31, 2024

Press Room

Residents in Austin neighborhood concerned about crime as police department struggles with understaffing

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Understaffing in the Austin Police Department in Texas has left residents concerned about crime in the city.

Residents in the Montopolis neighborhood in Austin’s southeast told KVUE-TV crime in their area is getting worse.

Delwin Goss told the station he woke up to gunshots in the neighborhood overnight Thursday, which he said has become shockingly common.

“It’s making the hair on my arms stand up. To hear eight, nine, 10 shots. Just bam, bam, bam. Where are those bullets going?” he said.

ALL CRIMINAL TRESPASSING CHARGES DROPPED AGAINST ANTI-ISRAEL UT AUSTIN PROTESTERS

Residents in the Montopolis neighborhood in Austin’s southeast are concerned crime in their area is getting worse. (Jordan Vonderhaar/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

He said his neighbor told him she hears gunshots from her home between two to three times a week.

“I don’t want to be shot sleeping in my bed,” he added.

And although Austin Police told him when he called they were already investigating, he blames the department’s understaffing problem.

Austin Police Association President Mike Bullock addressed the officer shortage Thursday, writing on X, “500 officers short has a real impact on businesses and Austinites who expect to be able to safely run a business and live in Austin. We’re so close to having a contract that can make significant progress towards ending the staffing crisis. Question now is if the city will actually prioritize making it happen.”

AUSTIN POLICE ARREST 6 PEOPLE AFTER ‘UNUSUALLY DEADLY’ SURGE OF OPIOID OVERDOSES

Austin City Council Member Mackenzie Kelly addressed the police understaffing problem this week while speaking on the Austin Police Association’s podcast, attributing it to funding cuts in 2020.

“Our staffing currently at the police department is a direct result of the failed policy that was passed in 2020 to remove funding for the police department,” she told Bullock.

The Austin Police Department has faced a shortage of officers since being defunded in 2020. (Dave Creaney/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)

“We want a fully staffed department that takes care of our city employees that are loving the work that they do cause then they’re going to do a better job of taking care of the community.”

Kelly told KVUE that council members are working to get more officers on the job so residents can feel safe in their neighborhoods.

“He feels as if his part of the district, part of town, is neglected, and I firmly believe that everyone, despite what district they are in, deserves the opportunity to feel safe in their own homes,” Kelly told the station.

While the city has brought down the homicide rate since a record of 89 in 2021, it still remains high.

“I think the bottom line is that, over the last three years, we’ve seen the highest homicide rates we have seen ever in the city,” Bullock told FOX 7 earlier this year. “So, either way, no matter which way we look at it, we’re not on a good trend. We’re headed in the wrong direction.”

The city reported 71 homicides in 2022, 73 in 2023 and 42 this year as of Monday, according to KXAN-TV.

In February, the department said the city was experiencing roughly one murder a week, FOX 7 reported.

Austin’s 89 murders in 2021 came after the Austin City Council defunded the police in 2020, which caused massive staffing shortages that prevented police from responding to non-emergency calls. The previous record was 59 in 1984, long before Austin standardized its ambulance services and had the two level one trauma centers it has now.

“I’ve watched it for the last five, six, seven years, and it just gets a little worse,” Goss said. “I see more open drug use in this neighborhood, more drug dealing.

“They’re not out here protecting me or my 85-year-old heart transplant neighbor or the widow that’s in her 70s next door,” he added.

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Fox News Digital has reached out to the Austin Police Department and Kelly for comment.

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