One hundred years ago, homes were primarily places for people to live, and weren’t considered as investments. Most Americans acquired wealth through income, and homes were only partially an investment consideration. For many reasons since the Great Depression, home ownership has begun to play a larger role than income in carrying generational wealth for Americans. “Housing has become (more of) a financial investment, not a place where you live,” Strong Towns founder Charles Marohn states in this latest episode of Upzoned. “And that changes everything about how we deal with housing.”

Those changes include the role of institutional investors, who have become a much more significant player in many housing markets. 

Upzoned host Abby Kinney and Marohn, her regular guest, talk over an article about research done by the Rutgers Center on Law, Inequality and Metropolitan Equity (CLiME). The study found corporate investors in Newark, New Jersey, now own nearly half of Newark’s residential property, the highest rate in the nation, researchers said. 

Dig into the details of this discussion and hear an early notice about an upcoming Strong Towns book on housing on this week’s Upzoned.

• “Who Owns Newark? City Fights Back Against Corporate Home Buying Spree,” by Eric Kiefer, Patch (May 2022).

• Abby Kinney (Twitter)

• Charles Marohn (Twitter)

• Theme Music by Kemet the Phantom.