California

If people are willing to pay for luxury apartments that says there are not too many. Let me know when more than 20% are empty. If it is less than 20% empty but more than 5% that is a good thing: it means that people who want one can find one, less than 5% and finding an apartment is too hard. The economy has ups and downs all the time which is why 20% is still okay, since when things come back those will get filled.

All new apartments are luxury. People who want/need cheap apartments are looking for something 50+ years old that has had the minimum remodels done since those are always much cheaper for the same size. Building an apartment is expensive and that needs to be paid for by adding some (relatively cheap) features that are luxury today.

I agree there’s missing context.

There’s a few other places that I can think of which have a lot of “new dwellings” built, even without parking, but local rent is unaffected because the type of dwelling is simply undesirable - for either financial reasons (luxury apartments are too much money) or practical (I have 2 kids and can’t live in a 1 bedroom + den - or they’re distant from work, no transit, and there’s no parking) or personal (I have 2 kids and don’t want them to grow up in the pollution etc. of a downtown core).

There is not a simple solution to this problem.