“Plunging Home Prices, Fleeing Companies: Austin’s Glow Is Fading”
April 26, 2024
“Oracle Corp. is moving its headquarters out of the city. Tesla Inc. is pulling back after a rapid expansion. Almost a quarter of commercial office space is vacant, and nowhere in the country have residential real estate prices fallen further from their pandemic peak…
After a 12-year streak as the fastest growing large metro area in the US, Austin lost that slot in 2023. An office glut has pushed the vacancy rate 5 percentage points higher than the US average, according to data from Colliers. Home prices have dropped 18% from the pandemic highs seen in May 2022, the most among the 50 largest US metro areas, Redfin data show. Even so, the city ranks as one of the least affordable housing markets…
…To be sure, even a slowing Austin economy is still hot enough to be the envy of a lot of other places. The 3.5% unemployment rate trails the national average, and the downtown skyline is full of construction cranes. Samsung Electronics Co. is opening a $17 billion plant in suburban Taylor, and plans to invest $40 billion in the area as it ramps up chip production. The city is also home to major operations for Meta, Apple and Google. Henley & Partners forecasts that over the next decade Austin will be the top US city for growth in the number of centi-millionaires, or people with a net worth of $100 million or more…”
This article feels more like a hit piece to me. The economy is horrible. Everyone is being effected. Texas is no exception.