New construction (supply) brings down prices overall but rental market reports only include inventory turning over right now, which is biased toward new, empty, and more expensive buildings. These two facts are not conflicting.
All new construction in the bay is usually high priced luxury since that’s where developers make the most return. Thus new units aren’t cheaper.
What I’ve heard is that’s either supposed to free up other older apartments or we’re supposed to wait 30 years for the new luxury apartments to become old and cheaper.
I think we need rules about constructing diversified units, not exclusively luxury ones but proportional numbers of basic, medium and luxury.
Funny, the religion in these parts is usually that building more apartments is the only way to drop rents.