Any Tesla employees relocating to Austin for the company’s upcoming Cybertruck factory won’t be met by the same reprieve in real-estate prices that’s hit many other areas of the country.
Business Insider reports home prices in the Texas Capital are still surging, despite some markets seeing a dip due to the COVID-19 pandemic and associated unemployment rates. But now, would-be buyers have increased competition: Tesla employees.
Tesla considered locating the $1.1 billion plant in Tulsa, Oklahoma but Austin won the site, offering huge tax breaks to the California company.
One real-estate agent told the Austin Business Journal she knew of least two Tesla employees on the hunt, often seeing multiple homes a day for a string of days as the company begins work on its newest factory.
Unlike the company’s home base in the San Francisco Bay Area, where deserting workers left a glut of homes for sale and rent, median home prices in Austin rose 10% in July over last year, according to the local board of realtors. Total active listings, meanwhile, dropped 32% while closed sales surged 21%.
Tesla plans to hire up to 5,000 workers at the new factory, where it will build its futuristic-looking Cybertruck. The company pledged to make many local hires for the largely low-skill positions, but didn’t say what percentage of overall workforce might eventually relocated to Texas. However, CEO Elon Musk has voiced interest in moving the company’s main headquarters out of California.
Source: Business Insider
