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The situation is dire for potential Austin homeowners earning less than the median annual income of $ 80,000. The rapid population growth combined with massive immigration to the city has pushed up the demand for apartments – and with it the prices.
But amid this affordability crisis, city policymakers are missing out on an important opportunity to offer affordable housing and rental options. You need to be aware of the data: the policies they are pursuing to help low income buyers and renters need to be reevaluated and they are overlooking other new policies that might help.
Our research team at the University of Texas at Austin found that between 1990 and 2019, the number of affordable single-family homes fell from 20% of all homes to just 2%, a shockingly small percentage. Much of that loss is due to the rapid appreciation of East Austin homes since 1990. Real estate values have also risen faster than median income across the city over the past 15 years.
Of the affordable homes that remain today, our team has found two promising options that have largely been overlooked by property developers and policymakers. These are single-family, mobile home lots, which make up less than 1% of all single-family homes in Austin, and small condos in older apartment complexes. These older condominiums make up 5% of all single-family homes and are half the median of newer units built since 1990. Our study found that both types of housing are affordable and have remained affordable over time.
Unfortunately, the marginalization of low-income groups is hindering the construction of new affordable RV quarters and apartment buildings across the city. Older condos are also often overlooked as a source of affordable housing, as affordability advocates have rightly discouraged the practice of converting older rental apartments to condominiums in cities with limited rental availability. However, in Austin, our team has found that the supply and growth of affordable rental units is far from limited. In 2020, the number of multi-family houses exceeded that of single-family houses, having grown more than three times as fast since 1990.
For the past decade, the city of Austin has advocated an increase in missing middle housing to address the issue of affordable housing. These are smaller multi-family houses with up to several dozen units, such as semi-detached houses, terraced houses and small apartment complexes.
An increase in missing middle housing was a key part of CodeNEXT, the city’s latest attempt to revise Austin’s Land Development Code. However, our team found that less than 10% of new missing middle homes built in Austin between 1990 and 2019 were affordable for households on below median incomes.
With affordable single-family homes building in Austin bringing little profit to developers, city policymakers need to step in and promote policies that result in more of these types of housing becoming available, including making more land available for self-use RV communities.
The city should also expand housing plans and policies that encourage the maintenance of affordable multi-family mobile home parks to include the maintenance and creation of affordable single-family mobile home accommodations such as North Lamar Mobile Home Park.
The city should also create an incentive for property owners to convert a sustainable number of older apartment buildings into affordable condominiums that can be sold to renters and other home buyers. We recommend implementing both a data-driven and a community-driven process for selecting candidates for this type of conversion.
Now is the time to act if we are to reverse the trends that have banned affordable housing from the city for so many people.
Junfeng Jiao is Associate Professor of Community and Regional Planning and Founding Director of the Urban Information Lab at the University of Texas School of Architecture at Austin.
Josh Conrad is a PhD student at the University of Texas School of Architecture at Austin.
A version of this comment appeared in the Austin American-Statesman.
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https://news.utexas.edu/2021/11/09/better-data-analysis-can-help-austins-affordable-housing-crisis/
