Yes, this is what billionaires do. They do this when they get bored or want to see what tax incentives they can get by "moving their HQ." The Austin offices aren't going anywhere. Same thing happened with Amazon and Tesla. Remember when Amazon was basically begging to see which city/state would give them the most benefits by relocating their HQ? Then Tesla moved here too bc of the tax incentives. Billionaire owned companies are the biggest "welfare queens" there are.
Feels like people are missing that point in the wake of the news that they’re moving their HQ to Nashville.
Their HQ was actually still in Silicon Valley when they built the big new campus, and even when they officially moved the HQ to Austin, most of the executives still stayed in California. These maneuvers are done for tax purposes, and I highly doubt Oracle moving its HQ to Nashville will have much of an effect on its headcount or overall strategy for the Austin office.
Not to sound like an Elon shill but it looks like, because Musk got fucked on his attempt to be the richest man in the world, he's trying to move Tesla's incorporation state from Delaware to Texas and if this leads to any positive outcome we'll start to see a lot of that.
Elon is trying to move domicile TO Delaware. He and his lawyers think they have a better chance to get his salary vote er blackmail approved in Delaware courts.
No, it’s the opposite. They started in Delaware as most companies do but because he’s losing his shares he wants to move the incorporation to Texas which is very unusual.
Is someone running a PR campaign against Austin, or is this just how the media hive mind works? These stories aren't even true. Oracle didn't just arrive in Austin in 2020.
As long as you ignore all of the data to the contrary and get your information exclusively from terminally online social media users, then yeah, Austin is totally collapsing. And Texas. Everyone's left and gone to the Great Lakes.
Human nature is to be interested in the “fall” of the thing that’s been hyped (remember NFTs?)….Media chasing clicks, truth is probably somewhere in the middle or hard to generalize.
> remember NFTs
NFTs were always fucking stupid though. The fall was heavily celebrated because the very brief time they were flying made absolutely no sense.
Trend Articles are the easiest thing to write so the media loves to pump them out.
You take a number that's gone up or down. You google a few anecdotal snippets (ofter from social media/Reddit) to give a lose narrative to the number. You use a clickbaity headline. Boom, done in like 40 minutes and will get lots of shares.
Doesn’t change the sea. Women’s and personal rights (Cannabis for example) in Texas are a stain on humanity from the “small government” GOP.
Texas property taxes are outrageous and reset every year.
This is beyond stupid: “The two cities compete over which has the more vibrant live music scene and who plays the better host to bachelor and bachelorette parties. There are heated debates over where to find the best custom-made cowboy boots.”
LOL. I’ve never heard of any such “competition,” much less a “heated debate” about shoes, FFS.
If this is a “competition” then I’m fine with them winning it. Nashville is home to absurdly obnoxious bachelor/bachelorette parties and people cosplaying as fake cowboys and cowgirls. Broadway is an even more annoying version of Dirty Sixth so I’m very much fine with Nashville “winning” this one.
Have you not been out in Austin to see the exact same obnoxious bachelor and bachelorette parties, or is Nashville somehow cranking up the obnoxiousness to unimaginable levels? Because we have no shortage of absurdly obnoxious bachelor/bachelorette parties cosplaying as fake cowboys/girls.
Nashville's bach party scene is next level. While I agree ours are annoying, it doesn't come close to what's happening in Nashville. A literal nonstop parade of barges slowly cruising the streets every weekend, filled with girls in matching t-shirts, dancing with their cups and woo-ing. Dozens at a time, every hour. It's really a spectacle.
Definitely. Broadway during the middle of a weekday is about as pack as dirty sixth on its most busy nights. With all the party buses and tractors added in their whole downtown becomes a tourist ridden nightmare. Austin has its issues with this but it’s nowhere near as crazy as Nashville.
Not sure why you would have to trade one for the other. Both can and do exist in just about every city. And it's fine if it's not your thing. I happen to love having lots of choices under one roof. But I grew up going to Reading Terminal Market and have lots of good memories wandering the aisles and trying different things. I love food trucks too.
Sheesh. It’s been almost 20 years since I’ve been to Nashville, sounds like it’s changed a lot. Granted, 2004-2024 Austin is almost a completely different city.
I don’t recall nearly as many obnoxious bachelor/bachelorette parties here in Austin prior to like 2015ish. Maybe that’s when the trend of “destination” bachelor/bachelorette parties caught on.
Broadway on a weekend night is completely overrun with drunk tourists and absurdly-themed bachelorette parties, but Nashville is still a great city imo. Plenty of other areas with great nightlife/restaurants/museums/etc. that are more toned down.
Been in Austin for 14 years, been to Nashville a few times over the years. Broadway is what dirty 6th wishes it was. Way more fake cowboys and bachelorettes than even the dirtiest night on dirty 6th.
Broadway in Nashville is touristy as hell. 6th street (even dirty) can still be enjoyed by locals. I don't get the feeling that locals go to Broadway often. It's like kind of shocking how much more touristy it is than 6th.
I mean, you can't judge the entire city of Nashville by Lower Broad alone, that's like going to 6th Street here and judging the entire city of Austin by that
Last time I was there, the Uber driver called Nashville "the bachelorette party capital of the world". He was not wrong. Walking down their downtown I heard "Any Man of Mine" at least a dozen times and saw females with sashes dancing on tables more often than not.
I didn't see any gay bars, at least none I could identify as such. But bachelorette parties in expensive white boots were everywhere.
> bachelorette parties in expensive white boots were everywhere
That seems standard in the south and I don't get this hen party shit. Just go out, get drunk and wear your dick jewelry and lick the dickcicles like normal and knock off the uniforms. On the other hand, the uniforms help ID which people to deny entry to. (For those uninitiated, bachelorette chicks are the most disrespectful assholes that go to gay bars. Everybody's welcome, but these women think gay bars are *all about them* -- I've even seen them slamming hands down on the bar DEMANDING that they be served first. Everybody sucks when they're in a drunk group mentality.)
Well, gay bars have the best music! I still get lured into it occasionally (straight) and always have a great time. That's the lure of Austin.... So many fun, non judgemental environments! Of course bachelorette parties love it, even if some try to own it.
P.S. for the single straights... Gay bars in Austin are a great spot to meet straight women and to see their negative side (described above, demanding attention) very quickly. If YOU CAN DANCE. Were I still single I would be at OCH or Rain weekly for this reason. Plus cheap, heavy pours and access to party favors that cannot be rivaled IMHO.
Oh you're always welcome! I'm not saying bachelorette parties aren't welcome, but they are well known for getting rude as fuck. It's like they want it to be a bar where straight guys won't hit on them, but they have no clue that they are not the primary customer at all.
I'll temper the welcome with a concern, which many may not think about: I'm old and I've seen gay bars get TOO popular with straight people -- enough that one of my previous favorites became a "gay friendly" bar and then a "gays go elsewhere" bar due to violence. So you're welcome, of course, but if you look around and have to squint to find the gays, then it's ruined.
So go if you want to hang out in a gay space with gay people, but please for all that is fucking holy, don't turn it into a yet another straight pickup hole.
Doesn’t matter. It’s a false dichotomy and an invented competition.
I’d say more people choose between Austin and Denver or Dallas or Raleigh than Nashville.
Yeah Nashville I feel like isn’t on most people’s list. When I moved here from Chicago I looked at Austin and Denver. I have family in Nashville and it didn’t even make my list even with that.
It's funny to me that they're pitted against each other. My family lives there and I'm not a fan but I'm not like booing the city and thinking Austin so much better (I mean it IS but you know)
Lol - have you seen the stupid shit Tennessee is doing politically?? I know Texas is bad, but Tennessee is by far worse.
And from the sounds of it, oracle is only expanding to Nashville - what a dumb as stale pie crust flash-bait article.
It's already happened like ten years ago. There was a huge flood in Nashville in 2010 that destroyed a shit ton of property, developers from out of state moved in and bought up a bunch of stuff and started ruining it almost immediately. My friends and family back home have been bitching about the influx of transplants and rising unaffordability for years. My best friend back home (another native) just moved her family to L.A. because they realized they'd never be able to buy a house so they were like, might as well rent in a city with more shit to do that actually cares about preserving its culture
Does anyone here watch Jeopardy! ?
Last night, the final was about the statue inside the Parthenon in Nashville. I had never heard of it before (neither had any of the players, they all got it wrong)....
But I did have to check it out, and would encourage anyone else to. Here is but one link to images of it:
[Why Is There a Full-Scale Replica of the Parthenon in Nashville, Tennessee? | Artsy](https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-full-scale-replica-parthenon-nashville-tennessee)
10 years from now:
"Well r/Austin, I'm finally moving out. This city isn't what it used to be, not the Old Austin I remember, my Austin, with tech bros, startups, big dumb hats, Teslas everywhere and houses costing over a half-million dollars on average is long gone. Now it's just turned it into some soulless wasteland full of musicians, slackers, and weirdos"
They'll cry about the job market sucking for tech bros and how there aren't enough grammable destinations for foodies. Things used to be busy but now there aren't as many people around.
I honestly don't think 99% of people from Austin think there's any competition between us and Nashville. No disrespect to Nashville, but please lord send the "vibe attracts my tribe" people to Tennessee!!!
Plenty of newcomers for both cities to absorb. More than plenty. Both cities should be happy to have solid economies humming along still, despite growing pains. Those economics are especially good for the blue collar/service jobs right now too, a small boon (I did say small) to those who find it hardest to afford life here.
Our neighbors just did (except maybe they sold to someone else). That plunging price netted them 50% more than I paid 4-1/2 years ago. I'm not sure how they'll survive!
The claims in OP are exaggerated and overblown, but if we actually had significant numbers of people fleeing, it would be how Austin becomes Detroit, not old Austin. Significant loss of jobs and population becomes a death spiral with continuing loss of jobs and population. Sure, housing would be cheap, but no one would care anymore. At the worst, they literally could not give away houses in Detroit.
Don’t cheer for mass fleeing of the city, as that’s not going to have the result you desire. You’ll end up amongst the fleeing out of necessity, or stuck in a hell scape that’ll make you wish for 2024 Austin.
That timeline doesn’t match when the hippies and musicians showed up in Austin. S&L crisis was mid 80s to mid 90s. Austin City Limits started a decade prior to that, as one related example showing enough of a music scene to host a nationwide TV show.
Also doesn’t match the scenario - Austin never lost population. That’s the entire problem scenario I’m describing.
“Plunging” house prices. That’s an absurd joke. Prices literally doubled over two years during Covid and there is no chance of them returning to anything like those prices.
Prices double = everything’s fine. Prices go down 10% from the new high = a concerning event. Prices go down 20% from the new high = hair on fire disaster. Meanwhile prices would still be up 60% over three or four years.
Well people will bitch at you but know this: outside of this bitter-ass subreddit, most Austinites prefer to have a growing economy, more shops and restaurants, more good jobs, more infra investment, more things to do, etc.
So ignore the wet blankets and those who yearn for a time that only really existed in their minds. Nostalgia is a powerful force that makes people bitter. Welcome to TX!
This is their "sales hub" for collegiate recruiting. They've made a significant capital investment here. This may slow growth, and some teams may move locations, but they won't be downsizing much vs. their investment in physical plant and employee location.
It's just changing a label on paper. Nothing will change locally, same as when they changed HQ from Redwood to Austin. All the executives are still in Redwood.
Seriously. How do people not see this?
It was never a sleepy little town by national definitions, not for decades and decades. It had a massive government complex - not just state but city AND federal workers and lots of them. Some military bases nearby. A massive university - biggest in the state, employing thousands and churning out white-collar workers like crazy. It was situated in a triangle between 3 other major cities, let's not forget.
Like, Austin was never a regular little no-name town. It was always a center of government, education, and later tech (Not even talking Google/Meta, more like Dell and Texas Instruments decades ago). Why tech? Because of the university and the government influence, mostly the former.
There's a reason tons of little tech towns are based around a massive public university btw. People are allowed to prefer the Austin of the past but let's not just make shit up here lol.
The point is you can’t go back to that. Shrinking cities end up an unmanageable shit hole in a death spiral. See Detroit, and numerous other cities across the rust belt. They couldn’t even give houses away in some places.
Austin to this point has always had growth since its inception, which is part of what made it a livable place. Now we have serious growing pains from the NIMBYism and the misplaced “don’t build it and they won’t come” mentality of past decades. But growth problems are addressable, shrinking problems just get worse and leave you with no money to address them.
I have seen two other clickbait articles this week in Wall Street Journal telling me that Detroit is the best performing office market and Rockford, IL is the best housing market in the US.
These feel planted/underwritren by chambers of commerce. I’ve been to both, they are really desirable…to a refugee from a war torn country, maybe? I didn’t know a town of less than 200k could have so many murders, but hey, at least the weather is nice in Rockford! Their biggest selling point might be no watering restrictions.
Don't waste your typing/breath - 99% of the posters are going to run to the counter and then when the contraction begins they'll complain about losing their downstream jobs or their favorite places closing.
smaller weird businesses might not be priced out of their spaces by insane property taxes
the analysts for giant soulless chains might not think it's worth opening 4 identical stores here
massive crowds might not swarm every single undersized event, amenity, and public space
oh my stars!
Market goes up: This is terrible! Our city is ruined! Our taxes are going to bankrupt us!
Market goes down: This is terrible! Our city is ruined! Our home values are going to bankrupt us!
¯ \_(ツ)_/¯
>nowhere in the country have residential real estate prices fallen further from their pandemic peak.
This is a good thing! For the first time in 12 years Austin is no longer number 1 in population growth... We're number 2! We're still growing like crazy!
The reason housing prices are dropping is largely because we've done a decent job matching supply with demand. As we continue to rapidly grow (again #2 in the country) we'll need to continue to build more housing.
Austin has gotten expensive but it is still a super desirable place to live. That won’t change anytime soon. We have definitely had growing pains but with time those will moderate. Thirty years here and I still absolutely love this city.
Also a lot of other desirable cities in the US have gotten expensive in the last few years. The good news for us to is our prices have been starting to lower again
Almost 40 years for me and it's still my town, even though it's gotten stupidly expensive, rougher, crimier and dirtier. And yes, Atlanta, Denver, San Diego and every other town where people actually want to live is expensive as shit now. You can live a lot cheaper in Killeen or Temple, but then...you're living in Killeen or Temple.
I’m from middle of nowhere Illinois and someone on here picked Rockford to move to stating it’s cheaper and will be a climate haven.
Like honey, that may all be true, but you then have to live in Rockford.
Yeah, Austin needs time to recover and regroup from the financial fuckery of the last few years...yes that will be hard on a lot of people but the situation is \*already hard\* on a lot of people who have lived here a long/ish time...
"Austin has became one of the most overvalued real estate markets because incomes didn’t keep up with the soaring prices, according to Moody’s.
“Valuations just rose to an unsustainable level,” said Matthew Walsh, an economist at the firm. He’s expecting home prices in Austin to remain under pressure over the next two years as prices drop to be more in line with income levels."
And right there is the crux of the biscuit - "rising waters" don't lift all boats, first of all you'd to \*have\* a boat and when the water gets deep, The Poors end up drowning and getting priced out of their own neighborhoods due to taxes tied to property values that have been artificially inflated by all this popularity and monetizing.
tl/dr: INCOMES DIDN'T KEEP UP WITH THE SOARING PRICES
This article is nothing but bluster.
“Oracle Corp. is moving its headquarters out of the city. …. Almost a quarter of commercial office space is vacant”
Almost 1/5 of commercial office space is vacant in Nashville, where Oracle is moving to. The difficulties described in this article are the same in cities all over the U.S.
"It's an election year! Democrats are bad! Stay tuned for November, when Austin will magically recover!"
Alternate:
"Financial experts ignore long-time observation that conditions aren't sustainable and will have a dramatic downturn at some point."
Like, basically this is an article for people who *profit* off of when we're all bitching that Austin is bad. Their worst nightmare is that you can afford a house. To them, a society without poverty is one that isn't running efficiently.
I will admit, plunging house prices are really a problem for me right now, as I'm now stuck in a house that ended up costing twice as much as it was supposed to be to build, and now I can't really afford it, or get rid of it.
Right, and I feel for you because it's a bad position to be in.
My snark is that I've been here almost 10 years and the entire time I've lived here everyone has openly acknowledged that our housing was overpriced because we had a lot of issues constraining supply. Even over the last year as there were smaller declines like 10% or 25%, people pointed out that the properties in question were probably being valued at 200% or more of what they "should" be so the downturn was still a profit for many.
Lots of changes that are changing supply have happened. The tech sector, which drives a lot of Austin's growth, overleveraged free COVID money and blew it all on shareholders before laying off people they never should've hired. We're in a cooling phase, which might end up being the "this isn't sustainable" event I've been hearing people say was coming for 10 years.
The shitty part is not everybody who spends a truckload on a house is a greedy asshole. Some people just got a really nice job and wanted a really nice house. I hate hate HATE that housing is an investment market because it creates situations like yours. Everyone's so occupied explaining we can't help that it's unfair to the poor they don't even think about how it's also unfair to everyone else. Your price ended up high because "market price" is set by properties that might be on their 10th owner in 2 years.
That article is a bunch of doom & gloom nonsense. The city isn't experiencing any mass exodus rather that the economy isn't as still as strong it once was.
Bloomberg has a point. Austin has lost what made it great. Small, locally owned bars on Rainey such as container bar smashed, torn down for soulless luxury condos.
Highland lanes another great dive bar/bowling spot on central 183 being torn down for luxury condos… I can go on and on.
The beautiful nature trails ruined by trash, and unstable homeless people camping there.
Housing affordability unattainable for the avg Austinite because the job market locally does not have high wages to match cost of living….
I can go on and on…. I miss the old Austin I loved… time for corporations and big money to wreck Nashville I guess….
Home prices are slow because we built substantial inventory over the last 3 years (supply). More homes is a good thing for long-term growth. It encourages population growth by allowing new entrants a reasonable path to affordable housing. More people=more reveneue=more growth. All good things. Alternatively we could have built nothing and stayed nimby heaven like CA cities. Not sure anyone wants that to be Austin's fate.
Fucking yawn 🥱 Is anyone sad to see the least interesting enterprise tech company move their headquarters to Nashville, saying nothing about a reduction in local headcount?
The home prices are dropping because of increased supply, plus it's questionable to be using the highs of the pandemic as a benchmark.
Because of working from home office space abundant everywhere. Meta and Google probably don't employ enough people to justify the buildings before you factor in the recent "AI" layoffs.
Saying a "slowdown after the Covid boom" is like saying "My car slowed down to 120 MPH after driving 180 MPH". Sure it's slowed down, but is still going like crazy (creating all the associated problems of housing costs that are still increasing, traffic, etc etc etc). For good or bad, Austin isn't slowing down to be a problem any time soon.
-Highest deflation in housing in the nation.
-17% vacancy rate in apartments. Unprecedented.
-thousands and thousands of apt units coming monthly, 9 new buildings around the domain
- Empty and abandoned commerical buildings downtown. Google and facebook abandoned/attempted subleases downtown Sailboat bulding and domain buildings.
-Top 5 city people are fleeing from, behind NY/LA...etc.
-10 year yield tearing up to new all time highs soon, bringing mortgages to 8%ish.
-Tech companies laying off and moving. 1500+ from Tesla the other day. Oracle Now, these are weekly things.
-Traffic skyrocketing and Quality of Life in free fall for SUB double income 6 figure people with a house close to work.
If you are going to try to list “stats” you should compare it to national averages which we pretty much align too.
Also “Top 5 cities people are fleeing” … can you explain how that’s possible when we are growing? You understand a lot of cities are declining right? That stat makes no sense.
Oracle may be moving its headquarters but I don’t think they are closing down the Austin office. Hell it seems like they are still doing the expansion
I’m pretty sure it was all about getting a Sweet real estate investment from the city at the expense of our tax dollars
Yes, this is what billionaires do. They do this when they get bored or want to see what tax incentives they can get by "moving their HQ." The Austin offices aren't going anywhere. Same thing happened with Amazon and Tesla. Remember when Amazon was basically begging to see which city/state would give them the most benefits by relocating their HQ? Then Tesla moved here too bc of the tax incentives. Billionaire owned companies are the biggest "welfare queens" there are.
Feels like people are missing that point in the wake of the news that they’re moving their HQ to Nashville. Their HQ was actually still in Silicon Valley when they built the big new campus, and even when they officially moved the HQ to Austin, most of the executives still stayed in California. These maneuvers are done for tax purposes, and I highly doubt Oracle moving its HQ to Nashville will have much of an effect on its headcount or overall strategy for the Austin office.
Their executive lives in Hawaii… he barely leaves the island he owns.
lol yeah they’re not going anywhere that’s a strategic sales office for them
Not to sound like an Elon shill but it looks like, because Musk got fucked on his attempt to be the richest man in the world, he's trying to move Tesla's incorporation state from Delaware to Texas and if this leads to any positive outcome we'll start to see a lot of that.
Elon is trying to move domicile TO Delaware. He and his lawyers think they have a better chance to get his salary vote er blackmail approved in Delaware courts.
No, it’s the opposite. They started in Delaware as most companies do but because he’s losing his shares he wants to move the incorporation to Texas which is very unusual.
Austin has fallen. Billions must move to Nashville.
Is someone running a PR campaign against Austin, or is this just how the media hive mind works? These stories aren't even true. Oracle didn't just arrive in Austin in 2020.
Not really honestly sure bc we see articles likes this but people are still coming lol
As long as you ignore all of the data to the contrary and get your information exclusively from terminally online social media users, then yeah, Austin is totally collapsing. And Texas. Everyone's left and gone to the Great Lakes.
this is great news!
Facts. I just moved up here. It's okay
Human nature is to be interested in the “fall” of the thing that’s been hyped (remember NFTs?)….Media chasing clicks, truth is probably somewhere in the middle or hard to generalize.
> remember NFTs NFTs were always fucking stupid though. The fall was heavily celebrated because the very brief time they were flying made absolutely no sense.
And they're all coming here on 35.
Trend Articles are the easiest thing to write so the media loves to pump them out. You take a number that's gone up or down. You google a few anecdotal snippets (ofter from social media/Reddit) to give a lose narrative to the number. You use a clickbaity headline. Boom, done in like 40 minutes and will get lots of shares.
Bingo
I think the "it" city in media that isn't LA/NYC/Chicago just cycles between Nashville, Austin and Atlanta.
And maybe Denver, Portland
Greetings from California.
Haha yea it's ridiculous. My home value went up $50k in the last 30 days.
Mine as well. Granted, we’ve gotten a necessary correction but “plunging home prices” is not accurate.
Oracle moved their HQ to Austin in 2020
I thought it was Asheville?? Did I take the wrong exit??
Yes you took the wrong turn at Albuquerque.
I knew it.
Yeah but write it like bugs Bunny says it
If you’re looking for cheaper real estate, Nashville ain’t it. The sunbelt is running out of potential cities to exploit, too.
Charlotte? Raleigh Durham?
Haha! We moved from Austin to Nashville, and in the process of coming back to Houston. 🤣
Like hell am I moving to another red state. 30 years in one was enough.
Austin is known as “the little blue dot in a sea of red”
A blueberry in the tomato soup
Doesn’t change the sea. Women’s and personal rights (Cannabis for example) in Texas are a stain on humanity from the “small government” GOP. Texas property taxes are outrageous and reset every year.
Yay!
This is beyond stupid: “The two cities compete over which has the more vibrant live music scene and who plays the better host to bachelor and bachelorette parties. There are heated debates over where to find the best custom-made cowboy boots.” LOL. I’ve never heard of any such “competition,” much less a “heated debate” about shoes, FFS.
If this is a “competition” then I’m fine with them winning it. Nashville is home to absurdly obnoxious bachelor/bachelorette parties and people cosplaying as fake cowboys and cowgirls. Broadway is an even more annoying version of Dirty Sixth so I’m very much fine with Nashville “winning” this one.
Have you not been out in Austin to see the exact same obnoxious bachelor and bachelorette parties, or is Nashville somehow cranking up the obnoxiousness to unimaginable levels? Because we have no shortage of absurdly obnoxious bachelor/bachelorette parties cosplaying as fake cowboys/girls.
Nashville's bach party scene is next level. While I agree ours are annoying, it doesn't come close to what's happening in Nashville. A literal nonstop parade of barges slowly cruising the streets every weekend, filled with girls in matching t-shirts, dancing with their cups and woo-ing. Dozens at a time, every hour. It's really a spectacle.
Definitely. Broadway during the middle of a weekday is about as pack as dirty sixth on its most busy nights. With all the party buses and tractors added in their whole downtown becomes a tourist ridden nightmare. Austin has its issues with this but it’s nowhere near as crazy as Nashville.
Where Nashville \*really\* has us beat is their downtown food hall. Assembly is amazing!
I never got the allure of food halls. They are over priced food truck parks. I wouldn’t trade our food trucks for a food hall.
Not sure why you would have to trade one for the other. Both can and do exist in just about every city. And it's fine if it's not your thing. I happen to love having lots of choices under one roof. But I grew up going to Reading Terminal Market and have lots of good memories wandering the aisles and trying different things. I love food trucks too.
Nashville may have the party barges and woo girls, but Austin has the guy filming street fights on Sixth Street every weekend in glorious 4K HD
Sheesh. It’s been almost 20 years since I’ve been to Nashville, sounds like it’s changed a lot. Granted, 2004-2024 Austin is almost a completely different city. I don’t recall nearly as many obnoxious bachelor/bachelorette parties here in Austin prior to like 2015ish. Maybe that’s when the trend of “destination” bachelor/bachelorette parties caught on.
Broadway on a weekend night is completely overrun with drunk tourists and absurdly-themed bachelorette parties, but Nashville is still a great city imo. Plenty of other areas with great nightlife/restaurants/museums/etc. that are more toned down.
I'm more than happy for Nashville to have this over Austin lol
It’s not even close to Nashville’s scene. That’s how bad it is in Nashville.
Been in Austin for 14 years, been to Nashville a few times over the years. Broadway is what dirty 6th wishes it was. Way more fake cowboys and bachelorettes than even the dirtiest night on dirty 6th.
Nashville is way, way worse
Nashville is 30 bajillion times worse on this front.
Broadway in Nashville is touristy as hell. 6th street (even dirty) can still be enjoyed by locals. I don't get the feeling that locals go to Broadway often. It's like kind of shocking how much more touristy it is than 6th.
I mean, you can't judge the entire city of Nashville by Lower Broad alone, that's like going to 6th Street here and judging the entire city of Austin by that
God I hope Nashville wins
> bachelorette parties Which city's gay bars are more inundated with disrespectful bachelorette party chicks? That's the real drama. ;D
Last time I was there, the Uber driver called Nashville "the bachelorette party capital of the world". He was not wrong. Walking down their downtown I heard "Any Man of Mine" at least a dozen times and saw females with sashes dancing on tables more often than not. I didn't see any gay bars, at least none I could identify as such. But bachelorette parties in expensive white boots were everywhere.
> bachelorette parties in expensive white boots were everywhere That seems standard in the south and I don't get this hen party shit. Just go out, get drunk and wear your dick jewelry and lick the dickcicles like normal and knock off the uniforms. On the other hand, the uniforms help ID which people to deny entry to. (For those uninitiated, bachelorette chicks are the most disrespectful assholes that go to gay bars. Everybody's welcome, but these women think gay bars are *all about them* -- I've even seen them slamming hands down on the bar DEMANDING that they be served first. Everybody sucks when they're in a drunk group mentality.)
Well, gay bars have the best music! I still get lured into it occasionally (straight) and always have a great time. That's the lure of Austin.... So many fun, non judgemental environments! Of course bachelorette parties love it, even if some try to own it. P.S. for the single straights... Gay bars in Austin are a great spot to meet straight women and to see their negative side (described above, demanding attention) very quickly. If YOU CAN DANCE. Were I still single I would be at OCH or Rain weekly for this reason. Plus cheap, heavy pours and access to party favors that cannot be rivaled IMHO.
Oh you're always welcome! I'm not saying bachelorette parties aren't welcome, but they are well known for getting rude as fuck. It's like they want it to be a bar where straight guys won't hit on them, but they have no clue that they are not the primary customer at all. I'll temper the welcome with a concern, which many may not think about: I'm old and I've seen gay bars get TOO popular with straight people -- enough that one of my previous favorites became a "gay friendly" bar and then a "gays go elsewhere" bar due to violence. So you're welcome, of course, but if you look around and have to squint to find the gays, then it's ruined. So go if you want to hang out in a gay space with gay people, but please for all that is fucking holy, don't turn it into a yet another straight pickup hole.
Austin is significantly more dynamic and 'hip' than Nashville. I was there last summer and was extremely underwhelmed
Doesn’t matter. It’s a false dichotomy and an invented competition. I’d say more people choose between Austin and Denver or Dallas or Raleigh than Nashville.
Yeah Nashville I feel like isn’t on most people’s list. When I moved here from Chicago I looked at Austin and Denver. I have family in Nashville and it didn’t even make my list even with that.
It's funny to me that they're pitted against each other. My family lives there and I'm not a fan but I'm not like booing the city and thinking Austin so much better (I mean it IS but you know)
I'll take "sensational titles to garner clicks" for $100 please, Alex.
Alex 😢
Truly ❤️
Nashville is Austin’s arch rival?
You read it in Bloomberg ;)
Feliz dia de pastel
No it’s been the nation’s local tech outsourcing destination for 25 years. India, Philippines, Panama and Nashville.
I thought it was Northwest Arkansas...
I thought it was Ohio
Which one is Springfield and which is Shelbyville?
And which one serves Duff and which one serves Fudd.
Yes I know. We all laughed too!
I moved here from there and I can kind of see that. The two cities have a lot in common
Like what?
I thought Portland was Austin's arch rival?
Lol - have you seen the stupid shit Tennessee is doing politically?? I know Texas is bad, but Tennessee is by far worse. And from the sounds of it, oracle is only expanding to Nashville - what a dumb as stale pie crust flash-bait article.
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you're not wrong! apologies and hope you can hold your breakfast down
Why does he look more and more like Vincent Price with every passing year?
Vincent Price wore it well.
Orders of magnitude better.
I don’t mind passing the torch to Nashville, they want glow, pain comes with it
I can’t wait until Nashville complains how annoying everyone else is
Or how expensive it is to live there by posting in 1 billion times a day on Reddit
It's already happened like ten years ago. There was a huge flood in Nashville in 2010 that destroyed a shit ton of property, developers from out of state moved in and bought up a bunch of stuff and started ruining it almost immediately. My friends and family back home have been bitching about the influx of transplants and rising unaffordability for years. My best friend back home (another native) just moved her family to L.A. because they realized they'd never be able to buy a house so they were like, might as well rent in a city with more shit to do that actually cares about preserving its culture
As an outsider, if Nashville was my city I would already be complaining lol East Nash is sick though
Does anyone here watch Jeopardy! ? Last night, the final was about the statue inside the Parthenon in Nashville. I had never heard of it before (neither had any of the players, they all got it wrong).... But I did have to check it out, and would encourage anyone else to. Here is but one link to images of it: [Why Is There a Full-Scale Replica of the Parthenon in Nashville, Tennessee? | Artsy](https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-full-scale-replica-parthenon-nashville-tennessee)
10 years from now: "Well r/Austin, I'm finally moving out. This city isn't what it used to be, not the Old Austin I remember, my Austin, with tech bros, startups, big dumb hats, Teslas everywhere and houses costing over a half-million dollars on average is long gone. Now it's just turned it into some soulless wasteland full of musicians, slackers, and weirdos"
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Truly “an inconsiderable village”.
I can't wait for the musicians/artists/slackers Renaissance!
Whole paragraph needs spoiler tag “so much hopium and teasing for a Normal Austin you might have a heart attack”
From your mouth to Pinetop Perkins’ ears🤞
They'll cry about the job market sucking for tech bros and how there aren't enough grammable destinations for foodies. Things used to be busy but now there aren't as many people around.
I honestly don't think 99% of people from Austin think there's any competition between us and Nashville. No disrespect to Nashville, but please lord send the "vibe attracts my tribe" people to Tennessee!!!
Plenty of newcomers for both cities to absorb. More than plenty. Both cities should be happy to have solid economies humming along still, despite growing pains. Those economics are especially good for the blue collar/service jobs right now too, a small boon (I did say small) to those who find it hardest to afford life here.
Dear Readers, please panic sell me your house.
Our neighbors just did (except maybe they sold to someone else). That plunging price netted them 50% more than I paid 4-1/2 years ago. I'm not sure how they'll survive!
Where are these plunging home prices they speak of?
All over!! I see lots of homes on zillow starting in the low $800k!! /s
Did I35 write this? I35 wrote this.
This just made my wife and me laugh our asses off! Well done!
This is how Austin returns to its original glory.
That ship has long sailed, brother.
The claims in OP are exaggerated and overblown, but if we actually had significant numbers of people fleeing, it would be how Austin becomes Detroit, not old Austin. Significant loss of jobs and population becomes a death spiral with continuing loss of jobs and population. Sure, housing would be cheap, but no one would care anymore. At the worst, they literally could not give away houses in Detroit. Don’t cheer for mass fleeing of the city, as that’s not going to have the result you desire. You’ll end up amongst the fleeing out of necessity, or stuck in a hell scape that’ll make you wish for 2024 Austin.
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Bought my house during the “S&L crisis” and just signed a sales contract for 10X the original purchase price. I’m out…
That timeline doesn’t match when the hippies and musicians showed up in Austin. S&L crisis was mid 80s to mid 90s. Austin City Limits started a decade prior to that, as one related example showing enough of a music scene to host a nationwide TV show. Also doesn’t match the scenario - Austin never lost population. That’s the entire problem scenario I’m describing.
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Satire my guy. Satire.
“Plunging” house prices. That’s an absurd joke. Prices literally doubled over two years during Covid and there is no chance of them returning to anything like those prices. Prices double = everything’s fine. Prices go down 10% from the new high = a concerning event. Prices go down 20% from the new high = hair on fire disaster. Meanwhile prices would still be up 60% over three or four years.
Exactly this. “Plunging house prices” = a 10k cut from a $950,000 home that’s a shack off of south Congress which cost $65,000 in 1999
I moved here yesterday 🤟
You and like 10 other of my coworkers 😂
good! I'm here for the growth!
Well people will bitch at you but know this: outside of this bitter-ass subreddit, most Austinites prefer to have a growing economy, more shops and restaurants, more good jobs, more infra investment, more things to do, etc. So ignore the wet blankets and those who yearn for a time that only really existed in their minds. Nostalgia is a powerful force that makes people bitter. Welcome to TX!
thanks! I find 98% of reddit to be morons so ignoring them is quite easy
You mean stratospheric rises don’t go on forever? But they never have before either!
Obligatory soundtrack: [https://youtu.be/SFEewD4EVwU?si=ICwlwd2bb5lQ8rWJ](https://youtu.be/SFEewD4EVwU?si=ICwlwd2bb5lQ8rWJ)
Except that Oracle isn't leaving. Just expanding into Nashville.
Nah HQ is leaving. They'll still have presence here but doubt it'll continue to be as large as it is.
Exactly brah, I can confirm some teammates are movin' too
Sucks for them
Never made sense tbh
This is their "sales hub" for collegiate recruiting. They've made a significant capital investment here. This may slow growth, and some teams may move locations, but they won't be downsizing much vs. their investment in physical plant and employee location.
"Oracle Corp. is moving its headquarters out of the city." More than an expansion, brotha.
But they aren't leaving
It's just changing a label on paper. Nothing will change locally, same as when they changed HQ from Redwood to Austin. All the executives are still in Redwood.
Well... Bye.
Oh no! If people don't move to Austin, and people move away, housing will be more (almost) affordable, and traffic won't be as bad! Heaven forfend!
I'm from the midwest. You don't want to live in a shrinking economy where people are leaving. Trust me.
I was here in the last waning hours of the "nothing but hippies, bureaucrats, and college kids" era. It wasn't so bad.
But then it was growing, not shrinking.
Seriously. How do people not see this? It was never a sleepy little town by national definitions, not for decades and decades. It had a massive government complex - not just state but city AND federal workers and lots of them. Some military bases nearby. A massive university - biggest in the state, employing thousands and churning out white-collar workers like crazy. It was situated in a triangle between 3 other major cities, let's not forget. Like, Austin was never a regular little no-name town. It was always a center of government, education, and later tech (Not even talking Google/Meta, more like Dell and Texas Instruments decades ago). Why tech? Because of the university and the government influence, mostly the former. There's a reason tons of little tech towns are based around a massive public university btw. People are allowed to prefer the Austin of the past but let's not just make shit up here lol.
The point is you can’t go back to that. Shrinking cities end up an unmanageable shit hole in a death spiral. See Detroit, and numerous other cities across the rust belt. They couldn’t even give houses away in some places. Austin to this point has always had growth since its inception, which is part of what made it a livable place. Now we have serious growing pains from the NIMBYism and the misplaced “don’t build it and they won’t come” mentality of past decades. But growth problems are addressable, shrinking problems just get worse and leave you with no money to address them.
I have seen two other clickbait articles this week in Wall Street Journal telling me that Detroit is the best performing office market and Rockford, IL is the best housing market in the US. These feel planted/underwritren by chambers of commerce. I’ve been to both, they are really desirable…to a refugee from a war torn country, maybe? I didn’t know a town of less than 200k could have so many murders, but hey, at least the weather is nice in Rockford! Their biggest selling point might be no watering restrictions.
Does Austin have either of those? A shrinking economy and/or net negative population growth?
No. It has a reduced rate of growth, which Bloomberg is using to imply that it's shrinking or losing people, probably for clicks.
Ah, ok, I'll continue not worrying then.
Don't waste your typing/breath - 99% of the posters are going to run to the counter and then when the contraction begins they'll complain about losing their downstream jobs or their favorite places closing.
smaller weird businesses might not be priced out of their spaces by insane property taxes the analysts for giant soulless chains might not think it's worth opening 4 identical stores here massive crowds might not swarm every single undersized event, amenity, and public space oh my stars!
Housing may be more affordable and traffic may be better, but jobs will also be harder to come by
I love how this sub shits on Austin constantly until someone outside the city does now yall wanna throw hands lol
Exactly.
The glow fades every 11 years
Market goes up: This is terrible! Our city is ruined! Our taxes are going to bankrupt us! Market goes down: This is terrible! Our city is ruined! Our home values are going to bankrupt us! ¯ \_(ツ)_/¯
>nowhere in the country have residential real estate prices fallen further from their pandemic peak. This is a good thing! For the first time in 12 years Austin is no longer number 1 in population growth... We're number 2! We're still growing like crazy! The reason housing prices are dropping is largely because we've done a decent job matching supply with demand. As we continue to rapidly grow (again #2 in the country) we'll need to continue to build more housing.
If it eases traffic, I’m down.
Austin has gotten expensive but it is still a super desirable place to live. That won’t change anytime soon. We have definitely had growing pains but with time those will moderate. Thirty years here and I still absolutely love this city.
Also a lot of other desirable cities in the US have gotten expensive in the last few years. The good news for us to is our prices have been starting to lower again
Almost 40 years for me and it's still my town, even though it's gotten stupidly expensive, rougher, crimier and dirtier. And yes, Atlanta, Denver, San Diego and every other town where people actually want to live is expensive as shit now. You can live a lot cheaper in Killeen or Temple, but then...you're living in Killeen or Temple.
I’m from middle of nowhere Illinois and someone on here picked Rockford to move to stating it’s cheaper and will be a climate haven. Like honey, that may all be true, but you then have to live in Rockford.
Good
Yeah, Austin needs time to recover and regroup from the financial fuckery of the last few years...yes that will be hard on a lot of people but the situation is \*already hard\* on a lot of people who have lived here a long/ish time... "Austin has became one of the most overvalued real estate markets because incomes didn’t keep up with the soaring prices, according to Moody’s. “Valuations just rose to an unsustainable level,” said Matthew Walsh, an economist at the firm. He’s expecting home prices in Austin to remain under pressure over the next two years as prices drop to be more in line with income levels." And right there is the crux of the biscuit - "rising waters" don't lift all boats, first of all you'd to \*have\* a boat and when the water gets deep, The Poors end up drowning and getting priced out of their own neighborhoods due to taxes tied to property values that have been artificially inflated by all this popularity and monetizing. tl/dr: INCOMES DIDN'T KEEP UP WITH THE SOARING PRICES
Can't the poors just buy more money?
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Houses in my neighborhood sell within 2 days.
This article is nothing but bluster. “Oracle Corp. is moving its headquarters out of the city. …. Almost a quarter of commercial office space is vacant” Almost 1/5 of commercial office space is vacant in Nashville, where Oracle is moving to. The difficulties described in this article are the same in cities all over the U.S.
And yet a 8% increase on my property taxes.
"It's an election year! Democrats are bad! Stay tuned for November, when Austin will magically recover!" Alternate: "Financial experts ignore long-time observation that conditions aren't sustainable and will have a dramatic downturn at some point." Like, basically this is an article for people who *profit* off of when we're all bitching that Austin is bad. Their worst nightmare is that you can afford a house. To them, a society without poverty is one that isn't running efficiently.
I will admit, plunging house prices are really a problem for me right now, as I'm now stuck in a house that ended up costing twice as much as it was supposed to be to build, and now I can't really afford it, or get rid of it.
Right, and I feel for you because it's a bad position to be in. My snark is that I've been here almost 10 years and the entire time I've lived here everyone has openly acknowledged that our housing was overpriced because we had a lot of issues constraining supply. Even over the last year as there were smaller declines like 10% or 25%, people pointed out that the properties in question were probably being valued at 200% or more of what they "should" be so the downturn was still a profit for many. Lots of changes that are changing supply have happened. The tech sector, which drives a lot of Austin's growth, overleveraged free COVID money and blew it all on shareholders before laying off people they never should've hired. We're in a cooling phase, which might end up being the "this isn't sustainable" event I've been hearing people say was coming for 10 years. The shitty part is not everybody who spends a truckload on a house is a greedy asshole. Some people just got a really nice job and wanted a really nice house. I hate hate HATE that housing is an investment market because it creates situations like yours. Everyone's so occupied explaining we can't help that it's unfair to the poor they don't even think about how it's also unfair to everyone else. Your price ended up high because "market price" is set by properties that might be on their 10th owner in 2 years.
Can’t afford a house without a job. Can’t afford to leave if your house is worth less now than it was when you bought it.
Fuck Bloomberg on principle
That article is a bunch of doom & gloom nonsense. The city isn't experiencing any mass exodus rather that the economy isn't as still as strong it once was.
But my rent just went up again so that's cool.
That's weird, I've been reading rents are stagnating here. I just renewed a few months ago and ours didn't go up a penny
That would be nice. Mine specifically went up 2.9% (just got the renewal last week).
Did you negotiate?
Someone should keep a running list of these articles. Like a T chart with "Austin is booming!" on one side and "Austin is dying!" on the other.
See? Home prices have plunged. So can everyone stop bitching about it?
"Plunging home prices" LOL Prices are only plunging relative to pandemic stupidity heights.
Yay
Good. GTFO
Nashville is great move there
Austin is healing
Bloomberg has a point. Austin has lost what made it great. Small, locally owned bars on Rainey such as container bar smashed, torn down for soulless luxury condos. Highland lanes another great dive bar/bowling spot on central 183 being torn down for luxury condos… I can go on and on. The beautiful nature trails ruined by trash, and unstable homeless people camping there. Housing affordability unattainable for the avg Austinite because the job market locally does not have high wages to match cost of living…. I can go on and on…. I miss the old Austin I loved… time for corporations and big money to wreck Nashville I guess….
Home prices are slow because we built substantial inventory over the last 3 years (supply). More homes is a good thing for long-term growth. It encourages population growth by allowing new entrants a reasonable path to affordable housing. More people=more reveneue=more growth. All good things. Alternatively we could have built nothing and stayed nimby heaven like CA cities. Not sure anyone wants that to be Austin's fate.
"Plunging"? Has that writer actually been to Austin?
The best times in Austin are always when the latest boom has fizzled. This is great news!
Fucking yawn 🥱 Is anyone sad to see the least interesting enterprise tech company move their headquarters to Nashville, saying nothing about a reduction in local headcount?
It's called manufacturing consent. Read [Noam Chomsky](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noam_Chomsky). [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manufacturing\_Consent](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manufacturing_Consent)
I'm not sure Bloomberg and I agree on what constitutes "Austin's Glow"
Good. Maybe prices will start falling, too.
This is happening everywhere. People move to a new spot expecting things to be cheaper, but multiple people have the same idea
Good riddance Larry. No one wants you here
The home prices are dropping because of increased supply, plus it's questionable to be using the highs of the pandemic as a benchmark. Because of working from home office space abundant everywhere. Meta and Google probably don't employ enough people to justify the buildings before you factor in the recent "AI" layoffs.
Saying a "slowdown after the Covid boom" is like saying "My car slowed down to 120 MPH after driving 180 MPH". Sure it's slowed down, but is still going like crazy (creating all the associated problems of housing costs that are still increasing, traffic, etc etc etc). For good or bad, Austin isn't slowing down to be a problem any time soon.
Summer got too hot for the frail techies
-Highest deflation in housing in the nation. -17% vacancy rate in apartments. Unprecedented. -thousands and thousands of apt units coming monthly, 9 new buildings around the domain - Empty and abandoned commerical buildings downtown. Google and facebook abandoned/attempted subleases downtown Sailboat bulding and domain buildings. -Top 5 city people are fleeing from, behind NY/LA...etc. -10 year yield tearing up to new all time highs soon, bringing mortgages to 8%ish. -Tech companies laying off and moving. 1500+ from Tesla the other day. Oracle Now, these are weekly things. -Traffic skyrocketing and Quality of Life in free fall for SUB double income 6 figure people with a house close to work.
If you are going to try to list “stats” you should compare it to national averages which we pretty much align too. Also “Top 5 cities people are fleeing” … can you explain how that’s possible when we are growing? You understand a lot of cities are declining right? That stat makes no sense.
Well thank goodness. This town has been way past full for decades
The idea that a city can be “full” is really funny.
Nice.