# An empire of one-bedroom apartments

**Published by:** [Brandon Donnelly](https://brandondonnelly.com/)
**Published on:** 2025-07-20
**Categories:** austin, bobby-fijan, multi-family, development, housing, apartment, condo, family-sized-apartments, new-homes
**URL:** https://brandondonnelly.com/an-empire-of-one-bedroom-apartments

## Content

Everybody wants a 3 bedroom condo or apartment until they see what they cost. We've spoken about this before. We know that the barrier is cost (i.e. affordability) and that many cities have more cost-effective alternatives. The result is that developers have a strong incentive to build smaller 1-bedroom apartments. And by strong incentive, I mean that it might be the only way to pencil a new project. I think some people believe that developers are only doing this to profit maximize and that they could build more family-sized apartments if only they really wanted to. But it's not that simple. There needs to be a market for it at rental rates that can generate a positive margin for developers. Bobby Fijan @bobbyfijan America’s cities are becoming empires of one-bedrooms This chart shows how apartment developers have changed the unit types built in Austin over past 25 years From 2000-2005, >50% units built were 2BRs From 2021-2025, <25% were 2BRs 50 8:51 AM • Jul 19, 2025 To show just how strong these market forces are, here's a chart from Bobby Fijan showing how Austin has changed its unit mix over the past 25 years. From 2000 to 2005, more than 50% of new apartments were 2 beds. But from 2021 to 2025, this shared dropped to less than 25%, and studio and 1 beds now make up nearly 80% of the new multi-family market. This is the new construction market in the vast majority of North American cities today. Cover photo by Jeremy Doddridge on Unsplash

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