'Urban Luxury' Housing Skyrockets in Texas and Beyond

In Curbed, Patrick Sisson presents development in Texas as a microcosm of the national housing market, which is trending toward urban growth and widening inequality. "The growing number of luxury rentals—and more importantly, luxury renters—in Austin exemplifies a trend in cities across the nation: the bifurcating housing market," he writes.

Across the country, multifamily development has grown faster than single-family development ever since the recession. In Texas, that has proven true even in cities like Dallas, Houston, and San Antonio—where "sprawl has traditionally been the winning formula for growth," says Sisson.

Sisson identifies two main trends driving this demand: an influx of wealthy renters, and a preference for urban over suburban lifestyles. As more Americans have become renters over the past decade, the share of wealthy renters has increased by 142 percent in Austin, 91 percent in Dallas, 73 percent in San Antonio, and 59 percent in Houston, he reports. And the demand for upscale urban real estate is helped along in Austin by the growing presence of tech giants like Google, Apple, Facebook, and Amazon.