Centerfield

Density Is Expensive, Part II (*outside metropoli)

I live next to an empty lot. It's nice, and I don't have to worry about it going anywhere. We've been here a few years, and three attempts to build condos in that lot have fallen through. The tape and little pile from construction of the third try vanished quietly sometime in the last few weeks. The website's still there, but that means nothing.

At first, I thought it was because of the bad local economy. Computers are by far Austin's best-paying industry, so it was especially bad here. But when I started looking for a condo to move into, I understood. If you remember, in Part I, I blogged that the cheapest condos are 40% more expensive than the cheapest houses in Austin. Well, I live in one of the cheaper parts of the city - houses are so much more cost-effective, they'll have a hard time selling condos. Eventually, of course, somebody will figure out that they have to do something a little different (a strip mall, apartments, or a handful of houses).

Here, there've been alot of worrying and calls for increases in housing subsidies because it looks like the high density that Austin's just starting to really get in to in more than a handful of places will cause another jump in prices.