Abandoned in Austin

My first visit to Austin - the trip that started this journey - was in February 2023. I wish I could tell you that when I went back last week, I had gotten it all wrong. Instead, the lesson here is that I need to stand firmer, more resolute, against those that deny what’s happening out there, or those that try to shut me down.

*Check out the full Austin video here. This is a new style for me and Travis where we cover not just new-builds, but existing neighborhoods, short-term rentals, commercial real estate and multifamily along with interviews with locals.

When I posted the picture of a Sold sign in front of one of these abandoned new-builds, I got a few enraged comments. The one that stood out, or reminded me most of my old life in servitude, pleaded with me to consider how this might impact the company and its employees.

Don’t post the picture of that abandoned new construction site, it could cost people their jobs.

If the company cared about their reputation, wouldn’t they have cleaned up the site and taken down the signs? As a former, reformed useful idiot, I understand these comments. I sacrificed a good bit of my life trying to save jobs and my company after the GFC. I swallowed a whole bunch of ____, squashed my will, leased my talent, sacrificed my health - all in the name of saving the economy, saving jobs, and saving my high-paying job so that I could be a good little consumer, going on vacations I was too tired to enjoy; eating at restaurants, instead of cooking, filling my body and soul with things that weren’t good for me. Meanwhile everyone, and I mean everyone, but those at the very tippy-top, got royally screwed. Most of us just didn’t realize it, still haven’t realized it. But, realization is coming.

And then there are the well-meaning (and I do mean that) comments:

Don’t post that picture, you might get sued.

Maybe I will. But, I’m tired of being afraid. I’m tired of the bad guys winning. I’m tired of the lies that I read every day. I’m tired of hearing our youth spout learned helplessness. Who else but me? I will not seek confrontation, but neither can I shrink from it. Trips like these are an emotional rollercoaster - one which I could not handle if it was not for your support. But, with each mile behind me I grow more convicted about the state of our media, the state of real estate and how critical it is that we wake up to what is happening/has happened around us. There are no politicians or institutions coming to save us. Only through our shared humanity and faith will we manage the oncoming crisis. Unfortunately, though, most have not yet admitted what’s ahead.

Today’s post will be shorter as I am still processing all that we saw, including my very concerning and depressing visit to Colony Ridge outside of Houston. More and more as I visit these new construction sites, I increasingly realize that many of our COVID fever dreams were fueled by cheap labor provided courtesy of our immigration crisis. And what about all those “experiences” for which you need services labor? I believe many of those jobs were also filled by foreign workers as well. While everyone in the press was worrying about a wage-price spiral and watching the dancing bears at the Fed, the powers that be turned off the cameras and let that labor waltz right in, knowing that it was likely the only way to keep inflation from spiraling out of control. And as much as the media wants us to believe this is a fight between the left and the right….it’s not. It’s a desire of the elites on both sides as Turchin astutely writes- that’s why we have no solution. Our earning power is being sapped every day. But, at the same time, as evidenced in Colony Ridge, while the government hands out gift cards, many in our country are figuring out how to rob, steal and de-humanize those that risked everything to cross the border for the American dream. This issue is not black and white, but we must be able to talk about it civilly, have the courage to talk about it after all of our wounds of past elections, and demand action as well as short and long-term solutions.

One of the reasons I do these trips is to contextualize the data we get out there which increasingly is a bit suspect (think all the revisions to the labor data, or the below).

My Austin deep dive will come out this week after new home sales are announced. For this week’s post we will focus on the data we received last week for new construction and existing home sales, peppered with a little Austin weird.

Let’s begin.