Booming Austin becomes one of least affordable cities
AUSTIN, Texas — Over the past few years, in one of the fastest-growing cities in America, change has come at a feverish pace to the capital of Texas, with churches demolished, mobile home parks razed and neighborhood haunts replaced with trendy restaurants and luxury apartment complexes.
The transformation has perhaps been most acutely felt across East Austin and the neighborhood of Montopolis, a 2.5-square-mile patch southeast of downtown, where unobstructed views of the ever-expanding skyline have made the historically Black and Latino neighborhood a sought-after community.
These days, construction sites and cranes feel like permanent fixtures across the neighborhood, where chic coffee shops, yoga studios and pricey bars have inched closer and closer.
A decade ago, Austin was among the most affordable places to live.
Now, according to a forecast prepared by Zillow, a real estate company that tracks affordability, the Austin metropolitan area is on track to become by year’s end the least affordable major metro region for home buyers outside California. It has already surpassed hot markets in Boston, Miami and New York City.
With an average of 180 new residents moving to the city every day in 2020, housing inventory is very low, realtors said.
Home sale prices in Austin skyrocketed to a record median of $536,000 in October, up from about $441,250 a year ago. And they have more than doubled since 2011, when the median sale price was $216,000, according to the Austin Board of Realtors, a trade group.
Surging prices have created a brewing housing crisis that is pushing mostly low-income Black and Latino residents away from cultural centers, transportation hubs, grocery stores and other amenities that come with urban living, activists said.
The lack of affordable homes has been underscored by the relentless sight of homeless encampments outside City Hall and under busy highways.
The displacement of low-income residents, in a city where about 13 percent live below the poverty line, has concerned Austin officials to such a degree that a grassroots movement led them to hire the city’s first displacement officer this year.
But not everyone is convinced a new displacement office will have a significant impact.
“It’s an aspirin for cancer,” said Fred McGhee, a local historian and longtime resident of Montopolis.
On a recent day, McGhee walked out from his home and pointed in several directions, toward construction sites or newly built luxury buildings.
“Not long ago these used to be all wetlands,” McGhee said. “Now all you see are new developments or plans for one.”
The East Vue Ranch is one of them. On the land that was once the Cactus Rose Mobile Home Park, the luxury complex has a sleek swimming pool, game room and enclosed dog park. Nearby, another apartment complex now sits on land once occupied by a historical Black church. Another Black church, built in the 1860s, was demolished to make way for a road to accommodate the new traffic. And a neighborhood hair salon was replaced with a trendy South American bakery.
“This has become the tale of two Austins,” said Susana Almanza, a longtime activist. “The rich keep building in our neighborhoods and the poor keep getting displaced. It doesn’t end.”