Austin Will be the Highest Growth City in the 2020s
Traveling to Austin
A few weeks ago, Gali invited me to join him on a business trip to Austin to meet one of his friends for dinner that was an early investor in Tesla and SpaceX.
My high school friends were supposed to visit me in LA during the dates Gali and I would visit Austin. These types of opportunities, to meet extremely accomplished people, don’t come around often in life. And although it would be a brief dinner, I imagined it could be worth the trip.
After some deliberation, I decided to travel to Austin and open the door to possibility…
I’m Bullish on Austin
I just wrapped up my time in Austin, and while I can’t comment yet on the conversation at dinner, I am leaving the city feeling like this is America’s next big boomtown.
Land
Austin is a mid-sized U.S city that is less established and built out compared to the major economic, coastal cities like NYC, SF, Miami or LA. This blank canvas of land allows for new, innovative, infrastructure to be developed much more easily rather than re-doing old infrastructure.
Education
The city has the University of Texas which ranks Number 21 in the U.S. and No. 7 among U.S. public universities according to the Center for World University Rankings.
The University of Austin was also recently launched by leading contrarian thinkers to reimagine a new type of University that isn’t subjugated to the woke mob way of thinking. This is long-term powerful for the culture and thinking in Austin.
Relocation Movement
It’s all over Twitter, which you have to wonder how accurate it is, but people are leaving major cities like SF and NYC in droves to move to Austin. Austin provides cheaper property and a less intrusive government from a tax and policy perspective. Austin offers residents two great lakes, Lake Travis and Lake Austin, beautiful rivers and bike paths, and an overall higher quality of life.
Musk Industries
In October 2021, Elon Musk officially decided to move Tesla HQ to Austin. I can’t understate how powerful of a signal this is for Austin. Elon is the world’s great entrepreneur and Tesla is the world’s greatest company. The Tesla Giga factory in Austin is almost built and it will be the second largest manufacturing facility in the U.S., second only to Boeing.
Elon also has a number of other world changing companies like SpaceX, Neuralink and Boring Company that I could also see leaving California and relocating to Austin.
CA has done nothing but taunt Elon, and I think Elon has had enough. Let Elon build cool things and change the world. Government needs to step out of his way and Austin/Texas will do that.
Top Leaders in Austin Real Estate
Through the Tesla community, Gali had the opportunity to meet Matt Holm and Anuarbek Imanbaev, who are top real estate agents in Austin and are also major Tesla fans.
It just so happened that while we were in town, Compass Real Estate, the firm Matt and Anuarbek work with, was also holding their national company retreat. Matt and Anuarbek held a party at one of their buildings with live music and attendance from hundreds of Compass realtors from around the country.
Not only did we have tons of fun, but we learned about what they were seeing in the Austin real estate market and discussed bold ideas for the future. One of those ideas was their side business called Neu Community.
On undeveloped land in Austin, Matt and Anuarbek are creating a Neu Community that is in nature. By leveraging technology to develop eco-suitable homes, they are using software to create fully customizable and modular living. These homes look extremely sleek and Neu. :)
They already have received over $1B in pre-order demand for their Neu homes.
There is at least 50,000 residents entering Austin each year and the city can’t build new homes fast enough. Hopefully these Neu style homes can be built faster and more eco-friendly to support the flourishing Austin ecosystem.
Austin FOMO
All of the signals point to Austin becoming an innovative, booming city over the next decade or two. I imagine we’ll continue to see catalysts that make Austin an attractive place to live.
While I am quite comfortable in LA, it makes me want to spend more time in Austin and find a way to get involved to benefit from the growth that will continue to occur.
I don’t have an immediate action plan yet, but I know I’ll be back!
Those homes look amazing! Definitely seems like Austin is more of an open canvas!