Finland's Zero Homeless Strategy: Lessons from a Success Story (2021)

Re:Finland's Zero Homeless Strategy: Lessons from a Success ... by cyberax on Friday January 10, 2025 @06:31PM (#42661608)

> The result? I'm looking at 2 bedroom apartments, and they are 1000$ cheaper than they were 3 years ago when I first moved here. Rent has gone down and continues to go down. I'm seeing studio apartments in the middle of the city renting out for 800$ now!

That's not a result of new construction. It's a result of the Austin population declining in absolute numbers: 978,763 in 2019, 975,418 in 2022. It bounced back a bit to 979,882 in 2023.

Travis County grew a little bit, but all the growth is in the suburban areas.

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Re:Finland's Zero Homeless Strategy: Lessons from a Success ... by simoncion on Friday January 10, 2025 @09:04PM (#42662632)

Honey, you can't math.

That 2023 number is roughly a thousand larger than that 2019 number. The changes to all of the numbers you're quoting are in the noise as far as considering changes to the cost of housing.

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Re:Finland's Zero Homeless Strategy: Lessons from a Success ... by cyberax on Friday January 10, 2025 @09:44PM (#42662813)

Honey, please leave math to experts. Go play with your crayons.

Austin population started to recover only a year ago, and prices are a trailing indicator. So the reason for the lower rent prices is not the new construction, but actual population decrease.

The same happened in San Francisco with almost no new construction, rent prices dropped by 30% following the the pandemic-caused outmigration.

Prediction for the future: the prices will catch up if/when the population starts recovering.

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