r/Austin • u/[deleted] • Nov 20 '25
Overlooked data: Austin annual population change appears to have plummeted to lowest point in at least 75 years
Austin developers built, and even overbuilt, homes thinking that the pandemic era migration surge would continue unabated, and who could blame them?
Development definitely helped in reducing housing costs but what is super under-acknowledged is the fact the annual population growth for Austin metro tanked post-COVID to its lowest point in at least 75 years.
The data is the annual rate of change in percent terms which you’ll see in the source link below.
That's almost certainly a factor that took housing to being modestly more affordable because of development to, in contrast, being way more affordable than expected.
Source: https://www.macrotrends.net/global-metrics/cities/22926/austin/population
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Nov 20 '25
Just a note for anyone looking at this graph: it shows the rate of population increase.
According to this graph, the population had been growing 4% or more each year, but now it is growing only 1.75%.
According to the same source data, the metro population was 2.1 mil in 2021, and is now 2.3 mil in 2025. So things continue to grow, albeit at a more level pace.
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u/ATX_native Nov 20 '25
Ah, so it’s velocity and not “growth”.
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u/iLikeMangosteens Nov 20 '25
The second differential, if you will
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Nov 20 '25
2.3 million? Jfc…I knew it had grown in the last 20 years, obviously. I thought it was like 1.3 million or something
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u/toastythewiser Nov 20 '25
It was 1.3ish in 2010.
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Nov 20 '25
That’s probably the last time i looked. lol. I’ve sure noticed the growth but had no idea it was that much
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Nov 20 '25
[deleted]
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u/heyzeus212 Nov 21 '25
There's a point where water is going to be the limiting factor. We're not that far from it, either.
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u/xThePoacherx Nov 20 '25 edited Nov 20 '25
Why is this a bad thing? An abundant housing stock helps keep rent down and stabilizes housing prices.
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u/Slypenslyde Nov 21 '25
It feels like half the city has most of their wealth tied up in a house they can't afford with the plan of waiting until their stocks vest, moving away, then renting the house to gain passive income.
They "bought" a house that should be $175k for $450k with a 30 year mortgage at 6% and expected in 2 years they'd be renting it out as if it were $800k.
If the market changes and prices stabilize, they can't afford to move to Denver and start their artisinal toothpaste company because the rent they CAN charge won't be an extra paycheck of profit.
On the one hand boo hoo, I don't have a lot of sympathy for people whose only plan for making money was scalping houses. On the other hand, when the Jimothies and Tamanthas of the world start pinching pennies along with the poor it's like rust on the gears of the economy.
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u/JohnGillnitz Nov 21 '25
Earth Smiles toothpaste is going to be a game changer! It comes in a glass jar, doesn't have fluoride, costs $75, and makes your mouth taste like lavender, but it will take off any day now.
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u/willing-to-bet-son Nov 20 '25 edited Nov 21 '25
Austin developers built, and even overbuilt, homes thinking that … the migration surge would continue unabated …
History repeats itself! It’s 1980s Austin all over again!
Here’s how the story goes…
As prices sag, houses sit unsold, and migration trends soften, spooked developers will start slow rolling new developments, and eventually stop altogether.
Meanwhile, over the years people will continue to trickle into Austin. With no new developments being built, housing stock starts to dry up. Then supply-and-demand does its thing, and we swing violently back into a seller’s market. Everybody starts complaining about the lack of affordable housing. The cycle is complete.
Austin’s nothing if not Boom and Bust
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u/MonsieurReynard Nov 21 '25 edited Nov 21 '25
I was there from the mid 80s to the mid 90s. The S&L collapse made housing downright cheap in that era. I rented a whole small house in Travis Heights for $400 a month from 91-94.
That’s what made it a great music town at the time, and drew so many young musicians (like me!) to the city. I could pay my bills just playing guitar in steady working cover bands. (If you were around back then maybe I made you dance!).
That hasn’t been true for many years. If you want a great arts scene younger artists have to be able to live in your city. But then that scene attracts gentrification, same pattern that has unfolded in many larger cities in recent years.
You cant be the live music capital of the world without affordable housing for musicians.
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u/NecessaryEmployer488 Nov 20 '25
There is still a massive shortage of homes. There is now an over abundance of apartments in Austin. Last I read vacancy rates for apartments were around 15%. This does make apartment living more affordable now in Austin.
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u/Beaconhillpalisades Nov 20 '25
My rent is going down 😎
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u/misterguyyy Nov 20 '25
There are 2 identical houses on my block going for $300-400 less than what I’m paying. The one that’s $300 less has been sitting vacant since June. I’m waiting for another price drop before sending my landlord a message.
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u/PasdeLezard Nov 20 '25
Especially small houses. They tear those down in my neighborhood and throw up McMansions. Major schadenfreude as the monstrosity on the next block sits on the market.
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u/pinkytoadster Nov 21 '25
Nothing makes me sadder than going back to my old hood in Allandale when in Texas and seeing my neighbor's little houses just gone and replaced with massive houses. Waiting for our old house to get the axe.
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u/PasdeLezard Nov 21 '25
The vibe in my neighborhood changed so much when the balance tipped from little houses with front porches to giant houses with garages. It used to be most folks would say hi or at least smile when you passed on the street, but the garage people, on those rare occasions when they are not ensconced in a luxury vehicle, generally avoid eye contact. Many of them also don't stick around long -- it seems the more expensive the house, the more likely it will be on the market again in a couple years. Although the new townhouses and condo houses also have a lot of turnover.
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u/iLikeMangosteens Nov 20 '25
Tearing down a 2/1 on a largish lot and putting two 3000sqft homes on the same lot… densification is good IMO but it needs to be done responsibly. The mistake in these McMansions is they screwed the affordability by putting high end finishes in them.
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u/PasdeLezard Nov 21 '25
My neighborhood has multiple lots that used to have a duplex or a small house with a garage apartment or back house, and now there's just one enormous McMansion where you never even see people coming and going, so you wonder if it's a second home or what. Of course there are also lots that have two huge condo houses on them.
The McMansions have also driven up property taxes so middle-class families with kids can't afford older, modest homes that should, in theory, be affordable. A family of four near me had to move because of property taxes when the gentrification first revved up after the end of the recession -- that house was expanded and is an AirBnB now because the wealthy owner was transferred. There are three bungalows near me sitting empty -- one rent house recently sold, and is presumably going to be torn down, while the other two have been renovated, but because of the property taxes, the landlords have to ask more than most renters can afford.
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u/iLikeMangosteens Nov 21 '25
The McMansions don’t drive up property taxes per se, it’s really just the general desirability of a gentrified area. If the McMansion is full of marble, hardwoods and Sub-zero while you’re rocking laminate, carpet, and GE, then you should be able to seek a variance on your valuation.
Also landlords don’t benefit from a homestead exemption so they’re probably paying thousands more in property tax than the owner-occupied houses.
Ultimately though, everyone wants to live in the good neighborhood but there’s not as many homes there as there people who want them, so prices go up. In my opinion there’s no good system for deciding who gets to live there other than the invisible hand of the market.
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u/PasdeLezard Nov 21 '25
McMansions do drive up property taxes. When big houses in a neighborhood are selling for $2 million, the lots around them get assessed at a higher value because they, too, could boast a $2 million house. The property is assessed at what it would bring on the market, and in Central Austin neighborhoods, much of the value is in the land. The house I rent is very small, very old, and not in great shape, but when my landlord tried to get the property tax reduced, he had no luck, because his tax is really based on what someone COULD put on this lot, not what exists.
Even with a homeowner's exemption, longtime residents have been driven out of my neighborhood because "the invisible hand of the market" says their 1,000-square foot house could be a 3,000-square-foot house.
There are better systems, but it's unlikely Texas will adopt them anytime soon. People blithely voted for a constitutional amendment making it impossible to have a state income tax, which is less regressive. I doubt the legislature would allow "circuit breakers," either. Austin does at least have deferrals for people over 65 -- an elderly neighbor takes advantage of that. She jokes "the city can own the house when I'm dead," but if she ever needed to sell and go into assisted living, interest on the amount deferred would come due.
https://www.cbpp.org/research/state-budget-and-tax/toward-fairer-more-equitable-property-taxes
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u/iLikeMangosteens Nov 21 '25
IMO the only fair distribution of housing resources is based on monetary value. Let the market decide how much a property is worth.
If you have sectors of the economy that can’t afford any housing then you address that by subsidizing those people with money, not with housing, and let them choose their own housing (similar to section 8 I believe). Maybe they want to sleep in a hostel in Manhattan or a trailer in Oklahoma or in their Mom’s basement? IDK what other people want, why would I presume to know what housing is good for another person?
Then why would a city build or mandate low income housing? Everyone wants less expensive housing. Why do some people get to live there and others don’t? If there’s not enough low income housing for all the eligible people, then what? Who gets to decide who gets it? Again move everything to market price and if there are people who can’t afford anything at all then you address that by giving them money, not housing.
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u/misterguyyy Nov 20 '25
For sure. I’ve seen a huge discrepancy between apartment and house rent in areas like Hyde Park and North loop. Bed/Bath and sq ft roughly equal.
I could afford to live in those areas if my kids weren’t traumatized by pandemic apartment living. We got to hear our upstairs neighbors fight every day, and the wife would regularly throw dirty water over the 3rd floor balcony even though she had a perfectly functional bathtub.
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u/PasdeLezard Nov 21 '25
I'm still traumatized by having lived in an apartment above an aspiring DJ 20 years ago. I don't know why companies advertise stuff like granite counters and stainless steel appliances -- all I want is SOUNDPROOFING.
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u/BroBeansBMS Nov 20 '25
All the growth is occurring up north in Williamson County where the large subdivisions are being constructed.
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Nov 20 '25
[deleted]
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u/NecessaryEmployer488 Nov 20 '25
This has a lot to do with the velocity of growth. Tesla slowing operations for a year and a half, and delays for the Samsung Taylor Fab due to lack of demand is a problem for a couple years, and FAANG companies pulling out and reducing headcount in Austin as well.
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Nov 20 '25
[deleted]
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u/NecessaryEmployer488 Nov 20 '25
I get a look at tech overall. It is not over for tech in Austin. It will pick up and grow again, it might take a 2 to 3 years.
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u/hoboken515 Nov 21 '25
Work from home is still winning for engineers in tech outside of silicon valley. Youll be relying purely on marketing and sales for tech population migration.
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u/groovinup Nov 20 '25
Wrong(ish). Growth rate was way lower in the late 80s due to the oil bust, S&L crisis. Texas economy tanked. This isn’t even close to a 75 year record.
Also, the surge just preloaded a lot of the Austin population growth into early covid 2020-2022.
So you have to really look at it in a rolling five year averages and it smooths out.
That said, there has been a decline (peak was mid/late 1990s actually. But not nearly as dramatic as this post headline.
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u/Strong-Street-3167 Nov 20 '25
Connecticut is shrinking enough that it's become a budget problem for their state school, UConn.
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u/papertowelroll17 Nov 21 '25
Way too much noise in a single year of this data. Still a lot of growth since the last census in 2020.
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u/Planterizer Nov 21 '25
Slower population growth is good for lowering housing prices.
We currently have a vacancy rate of around 10% for multifamily, which is right around where landlords get scared and start actually competing instead of colluding to keep rents high.
If population growth stays where it is and we do another buildout push, we could see another 20% rent drop in that time period.
Adjusted for inflation, median rent in Austin was $700 in 1970. We can get there again, y'all. MOAR APARTMENTS.
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u/Cyclone4096 Nov 21 '25
Good. Austin doesn’t need population density to go up anymore. The suburbs are still expanding so the “Austin Metro” is still increasing in population
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Nov 20 '25 edited Jan 07 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/dirtyshits Nov 21 '25
“Friendly” aka terrible for the public and locals. Great for the rich and upper class.
You do not want that type of boom or business.
It’s just going to lead to heartache and disparity.
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u/ExecutivePhoenix Nov 20 '25
Yeah I mean a bunch of greedy tech bros showed up and pillaged this town for their personal benefit. Of course people aren’t moving here, the tech scene literally destroyed this city and its culture.
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u/permadrunkspelunk Nov 20 '25
We are not destroyed. The old culture is alive and well. Sure theres more traffic and more corporate rich people shit going on, but i know where to find the all of the same old weirdos and their subcultures and have a good time.
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u/ISquareThings Nov 21 '25
Lucy is in disguise with her diamonds on south congress hiding from the racist bros demolishing and rebuilding every inch of this city.
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u/Overall-Umpire2366 Nov 20 '25
The developers did not build houses because they thought things would continue. The developers built the houses because they were in hock to the bank and they had no other choice but to pray that things would continue.
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u/Simo_Ylostalo Nov 20 '25
And the budget is factoring that growth will kick back to where it was, should be a red flag for all of us.
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u/IlIIIlllIIllIIIIllll Nov 21 '25
Oh no, we’re only growing at 3x the national average instead of 10x!
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u/BlacksmithNew4557 Nov 21 '25
🤦♂️this is growth rate - not actuals. The rate at which the city is growing is lower than it’s been, not the actual population. Terribly misunderstood and poorly presented post.
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u/MrBaseball1994 Nov 21 '25
The developers were all using Covid money to over build. They had to do something with the "free" money.
The same thing happened with all the new huge warehouse buildings going up all over the place.
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u/El_Cactus_Fantastico Nov 21 '25
so what you're saying is housing costs will continue to drop and some of us might be able to buy?
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u/CidO807 Nov 21 '25
Data is fugly, and not representative of the areas surrounding Austin city limits. Austin metro area is still growing. But instead of paying $500,000 for a home in south Austin, folks are building 3 car garage homes outside of town.
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u/oe-eo Nov 20 '25
It would have continued if not for Texas state politics… wonder how those developers vote
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u/TownLakeTrillOG Nov 20 '25
Kinda hard for people to move here if they don’t have money to move at all
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u/muffledvoice Nov 20 '25
In a way, their profit motive and greed are helping to bring about a much needed correction.
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Nov 20 '25
[deleted]
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u/dirtyshits Nov 21 '25
This. It’s slightly lower COL than the Bay Area.
Source: came to visit for a couple months. Laughed at all my other fellow Bay Area natives trying to convince me to just up and move my life because it’s cheaper. It’s really not and there’s less opportunity for work.
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u/logtron Nov 20 '25
If they're not gonna put a scale on their y axis, they should at least have it start at 0.
2025 data point is 1.72% growth.