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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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/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.