Austin is becoming one of my favorite skylines! Especially when all of the approved projects are built.

Housing advocates are giddy about Austin’s rent rates collapse.

Washington Post had an article about Austin last year that included this: "Roughly 87 percent of new office space is expected to open vacant, according to data from the commercial real estate firm Cushman & Wakefield."

https://www.washingtonpost.com/busin...ate-doom-loop/

I wonder if those approved-though-not-yet-built projects will actually happen? Houston-in-the-early-80s vibes.

I think the US can be weird on what it perceived to be good news vs. bad news.

“Collapse” for example itself is such a negative word. The rent trends, especially when we consider the actual urban housing, has been blowing wage growth by staggering numbers. Imagine if wages grew YoY like they had in Austin - it’d be insane.

But when we look at apartment units and data, it’s mixed with the more lower cost garden-styles on the fringes of cities with walkscores in the single digits.

Urban living shouldn’t be such a luxury, and if it is, there should be at least more amenities…

but I think housing advocates want to see rents stabilize, reforms that make urban living more accessible as there are a lot of societal benefits as well as being cheaper and better for the environment for society overall with infrastructure, efficient land use etc. Urbanity in many U.S. cities can be for those in poverty (with inadequate transit, etc) and those wealthier citizens, no children, etc.

At least that’s my take as someone who wants urbanity to be more accessible, affordable, etc in our cities.

My favorite Texas city and skyline. If only I could tolerate the summers. Was there this past August and wanted to die.

Two years earlier you could have frozen to death in February.

Only because the Texas power grid wasn't kept up well enough the handle the cold weather. The northern half of the US gets weather like that quite often and the power usually doesn't go out. Especially for three or four straight days.

I love what has happened to Austin's skyline visually, but this makes me glad that Dallas takes a more cautious approach to it's development.

It wasn't about the grid not being kept up. Here's some of what really happened:

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...fb4d27ee_c.jpg

Paywall-free (I hope) link to story:

https://www.houstonchronicle.com/bus...ount=MA%3D%3D#

Certainly something to think/worry about.

There will not be any Spec office towers built in Austin and virtually anywhere in the U.S. for several years. Everyone knows this.

I thought almost all of the talls in downtown Austin (UC and proposed) were residential. My understanding is they sell out quickly. Someone with Austin data could probably enlighten us, though.

A lot of it is residential and that is a good thing in this market!

Twin Oaks

https://towers.wpenginepowered.com/w...2-1536x909.jpg

https://towers.wpenginepowered.com/w...-1536x1045.png

https://towers.wpenginepowered.com/w...1-1536x941.jpg

This looks so gooooood!

Is that the NE corner of Congress and Oltorf?

Yes.

From Austin subforum :)

Up north they also deal with ice all the time.

For some reason people are laser focused on one week in Texas yet ignore the many power outages California experiences EVERY summer.

This will be a great southern anchor for SoCo.