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About 68,000 Austin apartments rent cheaply without any subsidy. A city report says many are at risk

Austin Housing counted 556 'naturally occurring affordable' apartment properties, most concentrated on East Riverside and in North Austin, and laid out how the city could try to keep them affordable.

By Austin Politics staffUpdated

Austin has about 68,300 apartments on properties with rents low enough for households earning half the area's median income, without any city subsidy or deed restriction, according to a staff report memo from Austin Housing Director Deletta Dean. The memo, dated Oct. 13 and posted to the city's document site this week, answers a council resolution from September 2025.

Housing people call these "naturally occurring affordable housing," or NOAH. For renters, they are often the cheapest places to live in the city. They are also older buildings that can be sold, renovated or torn down, and the memo says many sit where rents are rising fastest.

What the city found

Staff looked at 1,384 apartment properties with enough rent data to evaluate, the memo says. Of those, 556 met the city's NOAH definition: rents affordable at or below 50% of area median income, with no income limits or deed restrictions. Those 556 properties hold about 68,311 units, out of 243,393 units on all properties with rent data.

Other findings:

  • Where they are. The largest concentration is on East Riverside Drive, followed by North Austin, especially North Lamar and Georgian Acres.
  • Who is at risk. NOAH units are "disproportionately located" in areas facing displacement pressure, compared with apartments overall.
  • What they look like. NOAH properties tend to be older and smaller than the city's apartment stock as a whole.
  • Code problems. NOAH and income-restricted properties make up a large share of the city's repeat offender list of properties with ongoing code violations, while market-rate properties are a much smaller share. The memo notes the list has only 80 properties.

What staff say they will do

  • Track displacement. Austin Housing will look at tracking residential displacement through permitting and development workflows. It also plans to use a Displacement Early Warning System, being built with University of Texas researchers and expected in February 2027, to flag at-risk NOAH properties.
  • Zoning cases. Austin Planning will add a field to zoning applications asking whether apartments already exist on a site. If so, Housing staff can check whether units renting at or below 50% of median income would be lost.
  • Report the money. Housing will publish an annual report on money spent preserving NOAH and add preservation figures to its housing bond reports.
  • Buy and repair. The Austin Housing Finance Corporation has bought and preserved 12 apartment properties with 842 units, 237 of them restricted to households at 50% of median income or below, the memo says. Staff are exploring other bond types and a public-private fund for future purchases, a possible repair grant for NOAH properties with 20 or more units in exchange for long-term affordability, and a Small Landlord Home Repair program for one- to four-unit properties along the Project Connect corridor.

What our records add

The resolution. The council approved the NOAH resolution on consent on Sept. 11, 2025, 11-0. Council Member Marc Duchen was the lead sponsor, with Council Members Vanessa Fuentes, José Velásquez and Zo Qadri as co-sponsors. Besides the study, it directed staff to prepare a code change to relocation assistance for residents of apartment complexes redeveloped under a density bonus program.

Small landlords. In June 2025 the council approved, 11-0, a resolution led by Velásquez asking staff to look at opening the city's home repair programs to landlords with four or fewer units who rent to low-income tenants. The memo's planned Small Landlord Home Repair program follows that direction.

Displacement help already funded. The same night as the NOAH vote, the council approved two Displacement Prevention Navigator contracts worth up to about $1.4 million, also 11-0.

What's next

The memo does not set a council vote. Staff say the annual NOAH spending report will come at the end of each fiscal year, and the early warning tool is expected in February 2027. Separately, staff plan to bring a financing plan for a homestead preservation tax zone in Southeast Austin by year's end; our story on that memo has details.