Tesla plant in Austin spurs a boom in sites for RVs, trailer parks
Elon Musk’s influence is spreading to Oak Ranch, a sprawling development of manufactured homes about 5 miles south of the Tesla Gigafactory that’s going up outside Austin. New lots line freshly paved roads, each with a patch of gravel ready for a new house.
It’s part of a boom in lower-cost housing alternatives such as trailer parks, RV sites and tiny houses across the Texas capital, where the median price for a home has soared to $525,000. Nowhere captures the frenzy as well as Del Valle, where the Tesla plant is nearing completion and investment tied to the automaker has lifted typical home values 58 percent since January 2020, according to data compiled by Zillow Group Inc.
At Oak Ranch, the sales force is regularly fielding inquiries from potential buyers hoping to land a gig at the Gigafactory. Both are located about 15 miles east of the heart of hipster Austin, in a formerly remote area past the airport.
“When I bought that land 12, 13 years ago, I remember everyone saying, ‘Gosh, that’s not a good part of town,’” said Scott Roberts, CEO of Roberts Communities, which is based in Scottsdale, Ariz., and has developed Oak Ranch, two other mobile home parks in the region and a cluster of tiny homes around an organic farm. “Now, one of the highestappreciated submarkets of Austin is Del Valle, and that whole thing is 100 percent attributed to Elon Musk.”
Tesla’s $1 billion factory will be the crown jewel of the automaker’s U.S. manufacturing operations, producing the Model Y sedan, the forthcoming Cybertruck and batteries. While some high-end executive jobs will no doubt follow the relocation of Tesla’s headquarters to Austin, the company has promised more than 5,000 and up to 10,000 “middle-skill” jobs at the factory.
But with average annual salaries planned at just under $50,000 for the assembly line workers, it’s unclear how all those folks will be able to afford a home in Austin. “How is a $47,000-a-year person that has kids, and all of the costs associated with that, going to buy a $500,000 house?” Roberts asked. “They can’t.”
Housing prices have soared in Austin for some of the same reasons they have across the U.S. — low interest rates, a lack of construction and buyers flush with cash. And like elsewhere, the creation of affordable dwellings just hasn’t kept up with demand over decades.
But it’s hard to find a city that’s had it worse than Austin, where a booming tech industry and loads of newcomers from the coasts have combined to push up prices. The value of a typical singlefamily home has jumped 54 percent since the beginning of 2020, tops among any of the 50 largest metro areas in the U.S. tracked by Zillow.
“It disproportionately affects low-income households, millennials and households of color,” said Matt Menard, an independent real estate broker in Austin. “We’ve had a few more clients ask about mobile homes as an alternative.”
Other nontraditional types of housing are also getting fresh looks. Four miles from Oak Ranch and a 10-minute drive from the future Gigafactory is Austonia RV Resort. There are 100 camper and RV sites
there, with plans to add 100 more next year. Much of the demand comes from contractors for Tesla working on the new plant. Homebuilders Icon and Lennar Corp. are constructing the world’s largest neighborhood of 3D printed homes.