With the sparkling Great Lakes, the lower peninsula’s Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore and the upper peninsula’s Hiawatha National Forest, there are plenty of reasons to love living in Michigan. If you’re considering residing in Michigan, then chances are you have a budget you’d like to stay under when it comes to renting or buying a home. As of July, the median home sale price in Michigan is $289,000.
Don’t worry if that number doesn’t fit in your budget – we’ve got options to help you find a home or apartment that does. Redfin has collected a list of the 15 of the most affordable places to live in Michigan, and they all have a median home sale price under $289,000. From Detroit to Grand Rapids, let’s jump in and see what cities are on the list.
#1: Detroit
Median home price: $90,000 Average sale price per square foot: $78 Average rent for a 1-bedroom apartment: $1,320 Median household income: $32,498 Detroit, MI homes for sale Detroit, MI apartments for rent
With a median home sale price of $90,000, Detroit claims the first spot on our list of affordable places to live in Michigan. Detroit is home to roughly 639,100 residents and is known for many things, from its Motown and automotive histories to Detroit-style pizza and professional sports teams. If you’re considering moving to this city make sure to take a tour of the Motown Museum, visit the Henry Ford Museum of American Innovation, stroll along the Detroit Riverwalk, and explore Belle Isle Park.
#2: Lansing
Median home price: $140,000 Average sale price per square foot: $107 Average rent for a 1-bedroom apartment: $961 Median household income: $44,233 Nearest major metro: Ann Arbor (65 miles) Lansing, MI homes for sale Lansing, MI apartments for rent
Taking the second place on our list of affordable cities to live in Michigan is Lansing. When living in this city of 112,600 people, you can visit the Michigan State Capitol building and museums like the R.E. Olds Transportation Museum and the Michigan History Center. There are also plenty of outdoor activities such as exploring Crego Park and strolling along the Lansing River Trail.
#3: Taylor
Median home price: $170,000 Average sale price per square foot: $143 Average rent for a 1-bedroom apartment: $775 Median household income: $52,872 Nearest major metro: Detroit (18 miles) Taylor, MI homes for sale Taylor, MI apartments for rent
About 63,400 people reside in Taylor, which is located just southwest of Detroit. The median home sale price is $170,000 which is about $120K less than the median home sale price in Michigan. If you find yourself moving to the third most affordable city, make sure to visit Heritage Park.
#4: Battle Creek
Median home price: $182,169 Average sale price per square foot: $147 Average rent for a 1-bedroom apartment: $1,030 Median household income: $44,233 Nearest major metro: Lansing (50 miles) Battle Creek, MI homes for sale Battle Creek, MI apartments for rent
Only slightly more expensive than Taylor is the city of Battle Creek. With a population close to 52,700, there is still plenty to do in this mid-sized city. Plan to visit green spaces like Leila Arboretum Society and the Woodland Park and Nature Preserve, see a live event at Kellogg Arena, and explore the shops and restaurants in town.
#5: Westland
Median home price: $190,000 Average sale price per square foot: $164 Average rent for a 1-bedroom apartment: $1,012 Median household income: $44,233 Nearest major metro: Detroit (30 miles) Westland, MI homes for sale Westland, MI apartments for rent
Another great area to add to your list is Westland. With 85,400 people living in this affordable town, Westland is a great option to consider when looking to live in Michigan without paying the premium for a home in a larger city. Living in Westland, you can explore Nankin Mills Recreation Area where you’ll find a few trails, and stop by Central City Park.
#6: Pontiac
Median home price: $201,000 Average sale price per square foot: $123 Average rent for a 1-bedroom apartment: $775 Median household income: $34,673 Nearest major metro: Detroit (28 miles) Pontiac, MI homes for sale Pontiac, MI apartments for rent
A recognizable Michigan city is Pontiac, where the median home sale price is about $88K less than the state’s average. Home to roughly 61,600 people, Pontiac is a great place to consider buying a home this year. There are lots of activities to do in this city which is just north of Detroit. You can check out downtown Pontiac, see a race at the M1 Concourse, and visit one of the parks like Hawthorne Park, among many other local favorites.
#7: Kalamazoo
Median home price: $210,000 Average sale price per square foot: $158 Average rent for a 1-bedroom apartment: $1,081 Median household income: $43,222 Nearest major metro: Grand Rapids (50 miles) Kalamazoo, MI homes for sale Kalamazoo, MI apartments for rent
Coming in seventh place on our list of affordable places to live in Michigan is Kalamazoo. With a population of close to 73,600, living in Kalamazoo is a great option for those looking for a mid-sized city to call home. Don’t miss out on exploring the downtown area where you’ll find concert venues, museums, local shops, and stellar restaurants. You can also spend time strolling through the expansive Asylum Lake Preserve and checking out Spring Valley Park if you move to this city.
#8: Warren
Median home price: $211,000 Average sale price per square foot: $160 Median household income: $51,796 Nearest major metro: Detroit (20 miles) Warren, MI homes for sale Warren, MI apartments for rent
If you’ve been living in Michigan for some time, you might know of Warren. Almost 139,400 residents call this affordable city home, which is located just north of Detroit. Be sure to spend the day at one of the many parks, go shopping, or eat at a local restaurant once you move to Warren.
#9: Dearborn Heights
Median home price: $215,000 Average sale price per square foot: $175 Median household income: $50,987 Nearest major metro: Detroit (15 miles) Dearborn Heights, MI homes for sale Dearborn Heights, MI apartments for rent
With a population of about 63,300, Dearborn Heights is a great place to consider living in Michigan. Fun activities to do in Dearborn Heights include golfing at one of the courses or grabbing a meal at a local restaurant.
#10: Southfield
Median home price: $222,500 Average sale price per square foot: $156 Average rent for a 1-bedroom apartment: $1,079 Median household income: $58,076 Nearest major metro: Detroit (15 miles) Southfield, MI homes for sale Southfield, MI apartments for rent
Taking the 10th spot is Southfield, another one of the affordable places to live in Michigan. This city has a population of 76,600 and you can visit parks and nature preserves like Beech Woods Park and Bauervic Woods Park, or golf at one of the courses. There’s plenty to do on an afternoon or weekend while living in Southfield.
#11: St. Clair Shores
Median home price: $273,250 Average sale price per square foot: $182 Median household income: $62,935 Nearest major metro: Detroit (18 miles) St. Clair Shores, MI homes for sale St. Clair Shores, MI apartments for rent
With a median home sale price of $273,250, St. Clair Shores is another affordable city to consider buying a home in this year. There are about 58,900 people living in this city, giving St. Clair Shores a city-like feel without the hustle and bustle. If St. Clair Shores is the city for you, be sure to grab a meal at one of the many lakefront restaurants, and visit the historic Ford House.
#12: Dearborn
Median home price: $240,000 Average sale price per square foot: $181 Average rent for a 1-bedroom apartment: $1,390 Median household income: $56,302 Nearest major metro: Detroit (9 miles) Dearborn, MI homes for sale Dearborn, MI apartments for rent
The city of Dearborn takes the 12th spot on our list. For those looking to buy a home, the median sale price is $240,000. If you move to Dearborn, the nearest major metro is Detroit which is just 9 miles west. There is plenty to do in Dearborn like checking out the exhibits at Henry Ford Museum of American Innovation, touring Fair Lane, the home of Clara and Henry Ford, and exploring Ford Field Park.
#13: Wyoming
Median home price: $273,250 Average sale price per square foot: $210 Average rent for a 1-bedroom apartment: $1,350 Median household income: $57,088 Nearest major metro: Grand Rapids (6 miles) Wyoming, MI homes for sale Wyoming, MI apartments for rent
The city of Wyoming is another awesome affordable city to consider residing in. With a median home sale price of $273,250 and a population of 76,500 there are plenty of reasons that might convince you to move to Wyoming. You’ll find lots of activities, such as visiting some of the parks in town like Lamar Park, Battjes Park, Pinery Park, and Palmer Park, and golfing at one of the courses.
#14: Sterling Heights
Median home price: $273,500 Average sale price per square foot: $194 Average rent for a 1-bedroom apartment: $1,212 Median household income: $66,346 Nearest major metro: Detroit (24 miles) Sterling Heights, MI homes for sale Sterling Heights, MI apartments for rent
In the 14th spot on our list is Sterling Heights. There are about 134,300 residents in the city, and there is a lot to do in the city whether you’re looking to spend time outdoors or inside. For example, you can explore the tranquil Clinton River Park North, golf at one of the courses, or grab a meal at a local spot.
#15: Grand Rapids
Median home price: $279,900 Average sale price per square foot: $203 Average rent for a 1-bedroom apartment: $1,150 Median household income: $51,333 Nearest major metro: Detroit (157 miles) Grand Rapids, MI homes for sale Grand Rapids, MI apartments for rent
Taking the 15th and final spot on our list of most affordable places to live in Michigan is Grand Rapids. The median home sale price in Grand Rapids is $279,900, and there are about 198,900 residents in the area. If you’re looking for something to do while living in Grand Rapids, make sure to check out Ah-Nab-Awen Park along the Grand River where you’ll find historic sites and museums. You can also admire the artwork at the Grand Rapids Art Museum, and explore Riverside Park where you can hike, bike, and bird-watch.
Methodology: All cities must have over 50,000 residents per the US Census and have a median home sale price under the average median home sale price in Michigan. Median home sale price and median sale price per square foot from the Redfin Data Center during July 2023. Average rental data from Rent.com July 2023. Population and median household income data sourced from the United States Census Bureau.
With the sparkling Great Lakes, the lower peninsula’s Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore and the upper peninsula’s Hiawatha National Forest, there are plenty of reasons to love living in Michigan. If you’re considering residing in Michigan, then chances are you have a budget you’d like to stay under when it comes to renting or buying a home. As of July, the median home sale price in Michigan is $289,000.
Don’t worry if that number doesn’t fit in your budget – we’ve got options to help you find a home or apartment that does. Redfin has collected a list of the 15 of the most affordable places to live in Michigan, and they all have a median home sale price under $289,000. From Detroit to Grand Rapids, let’s jump in and see what cities are on the list.
#1: Detroit
Median home price: $90,000 Average sale price per square foot: $78 Average rent for a 1-bedroom apartment: $1,320 Median household income: $32,498 Detroit, MI homes for sale Detroit, MI apartments for rent
With a median home sale price of $90,000, Detroit claims the first spot on our list of affordable places to live in Michigan. Detroit is home to roughly 639,100 residents and is known for many things, from its Motown and automotive histories to Detroit-style pizza and professional sports teams. If you’re considering moving to this city make sure to take a tour of the Motown Museum, visit the Henry Ford Museum of American Innovation, stroll along the Detroit Riverwalk, and explore Belle Isle Park.
#2: Lansing
Median home price: $140,000 Average sale price per square foot: $107 Average rent for a 1-bedroom apartment: $961 Median household income: $44,233 Nearest major metro: Ann Arbor (65 miles) Lansing, MI homes for sale Lansing, MI apartments for rent
Taking the second place on our list of affordable cities to live in Michigan is Lansing. When living in this city of 112,600 people, you can visit the Michigan State Capitol building and museums like the R.E. Olds Transportation Museum and the Michigan History Center. There are also plenty of outdoor activities such as exploring Crego Park and strolling along the Lansing River Trail.
#3: Taylor
Median home price: $170,000 Average sale price per square foot: $143 Average rent for a 1-bedroom apartment: $775 Median household income: $52,872 Nearest major metro: Detroit (18 miles) Taylor, MI homes for sale Taylor, MI apartments for rent
About 63,400 people reside in Taylor, which is located just southwest of Detroit. The median home sale price is $170,000 which is about $120K less than the median home sale price in Michigan. If you find yourself moving to the third most affordable city, make sure to visit Heritage Park.
#4: Battle Creek
Median home price: $182,169 Average sale price per square foot: $147 Average rent for a 1-bedroom apartment: $1,030 Median household income: $44,233 Nearest major metro: Lansing (50 miles) Battle Creek, MI homes for sale Battle Creek, MI apartments for rent
Only slightly more expensive than Taylor is the city of Battle Creek. With a population close to 52,700, there is still plenty to do in this mid-sized city. Plan to visit green spaces like Leila Arboretum Society and the Woodland Park and Nature Preserve, see a live event at Kellogg Arena, and explore the shops and restaurants in town.
#5: Westland
Median home price: $190,000 Average sale price per square foot: $164 Average rent for a 1-bedroom apartment: $1,012 Median household income: $44,233 Nearest major metro: Detroit (30 miles) Westland, MI homes for sale Westland, MI apartments for rent
Another great area to add to your list is Westland. With 85,400 people living in this affordable town, Westland is a great option to consider when looking to live in Michigan without paying the premium for a home in a larger city. Living in Westland, you can explore Nankin Mills Recreation Area where you’ll find a few trails, and stop by Central City Park.
#6: Pontiac
Median home price: $201,000 Average sale price per square foot: $123 Average rent for a 1-bedroom apartment: $775 Median household income: $34,673 Nearest major metro: Detroit (28 miles) Pontiac, MI homes for sale Pontiac, MI apartments for rent
A recognizable Michigan city is Pontiac, where the median home sale price is about $88K less than the state’s average. Home to roughly 61,600 people, Pontiac is a great place to consider buying a home this year. There are lots of activities to do in this city which is just north of Detroit. You can check out downtown Pontiac, see a race at the M1 Concourse, and visit one of the parks like Hawthorne Park, among many other local favorites.
#7: Kalamazoo
Median home price: $210,000 Average sale price per square foot: $158 Average rent for a 1-bedroom apartment: $1,081 Median household income: $43,222 Nearest major metro: Grand Rapids (50 miles) Kalamazoo, MI homes for sale Kalamazoo, MI apartments for rent
Coming in seventh place on our list of affordable places to live in Michigan is Kalamazoo. With a population of close to 73,600, living in Kalamazoo is a great option for those looking for a mid-sized city to call home. Don’t miss out on exploring the downtown area where you’ll find concert venues, museums, local shops, and stellar restaurants. You can also spend time strolling through the expansive Asylum Lake Preserve and checking out Spring Valley Park if you move to this city.
#8: Warren
Median home price: $211,000 Average sale price per square foot: $160 Median household income: $51,796 Nearest major metro: Detroit (20 miles) Warren, MI homes for sale Warren, MI apartments for rent
If you’ve been living in Michigan for some time, you might know of Warren. Almost 139,400 residents call this affordable city home, which is located just north of Detroit. Be sure to spend the day at one of the many parks, go shopping, or eat at a local restaurant once you move to Warren.
#9: Dearborn Heights
Median home price: $215,000 Average sale price per square foot: $175 Median household income: $50,987 Nearest major metro: Detroit (15 miles) Dearborn Heights, MI homes for sale Dearborn Heights, MI apartments for rent
With a population of about 63,300, Dearborn Heights is a great place to consider living in Michigan. Fun activities to do in Dearborn Heights include golfing at one of the courses or grabbing a meal at a local restaurant.
#10: Southfield
Median home price: $222,500 Average sale price per square foot: $156 Average rent for a 1-bedroom apartment: $1,079 Median household income: $58,076 Nearest major metro: Detroit (15 miles) Southfield, MI homes for sale Southfield, MI apartments for rent
Taking the 10th spot is Southfield, another one of the affordable places to live in Michigan. This city has a population of 76,600 and you can visit parks and nature preserves like Beech Woods Park and Bauervic Woods Park, or golf at one of the courses. There’s plenty to do on an afternoon or weekend while living in Southfield.
#11: St. Clair Shores
Median home price: $273,250 Average sale price per square foot: $182 Median household income: $62,935 Nearest major metro: Detroit (18 miles) St. Clair Shores, MI homes for sale St. Clair Shores, MI apartments for rent
With a median home sale price of $273,250, St. Clair Shores is another affordable city to consider buying a home in this year. There are about 58,900 people living in this city, giving St. Clair Shores a city-like feel without the hustle and bustle. If St. Clair Shores is the city for you, be sure to grab a meal at one of the many lakefront restaurants, and visit the historic Ford House.
#12: Dearborn
Median home price: $240,000 Average sale price per square foot: $181 Average rent for a 1-bedroom apartment: $1,390 Median household income: $56,302 Nearest major metro: Detroit (9 miles) Dearborn, MI homes for sale Dearborn, MI apartments for rent
The city of Dearborn takes the 12th spot on our list. For those looking to buy a home, the median sale price is $240,000. If you move to Dearborn, the nearest major metro is Detroit which is just 9 miles west. There is plenty to do in Dearborn like checking out the exhibits at Henry Ford Museum of American Innovation, touring Fair Lane, the home of Clara and Henry Ford, and exploring Ford Field Park.
#13: Wyoming
Median home price: $273,250 Average sale price per square foot: $210 Average rent for a 1-bedroom apartment: $1,350 Median household income: $57,088 Nearest major metro: Grand Rapids (6 miles) Wyoming, MI homes for sale Wyoming, MI apartments for rent
The city of Wyoming is another awesome affordable city to consider residing in. With a median home sale price of $273,250 and a population of 76,500 there are plenty of reasons that might convince you to move to Wyoming. You’ll find lots of activities, such as visiting some of the parks in town like Lamar Park, Battjes Park, Pinery Park, and Palmer Park, and golfing at one of the courses.
#14: Sterling Heights
Median home price: $273,500 Average sale price per square foot: $194 Average rent for a 1-bedroom apartment: $1,212 Median household income: $66,346 Nearest major metro: Detroit (24 miles) Sterling Heights, MI homes for sale Sterling Heights, MI apartments for rent
In the 14th spot on our list is Sterling Heights. There are about 134,300 residents in the city, and there is a lot to do in the city whether you’re looking to spend time outdoors or inside. For example, you can explore the tranquil Clinton River Park North, golf at one of the courses, or grab a meal at a local spot.
#15: Grand Rapids
Median home price: $279,900 Average sale price per square foot: $203 Average rent for a 1-bedroom apartment: $1,150 Median household income: $51,333 Nearest major metro: Detroit (157 miles) Grand Rapids, MI homes for sale Grand Rapids, MI apartments for rent
Taking the 15th and final spot on our list of most affordable places to live in Michigan is Grand Rapids. The median home sale price in Grand Rapids is $279,900, and there are about 198,900 residents in the area. If you’re looking for something to do while living in Grand Rapids, make sure to check out Ah-Nab-Awen Park along the Grand River where you’ll find historic sites and museums. You can also admire the artwork at the Grand Rapids Art Museum, and explore Riverside Park where you can hike, bike, and bird-watch.
Methodology: All cities must have over 50,000 residents per the US Census and have a median home sale price under the average median home sale price in Michigan. Median home sale price and median sale price per square foot from the Redfin Data Center during July 2023. Average rental data from Rent.com July 2023. Population and median household income data sourced from the United States Census Bureau.
I am fat, but I am not obese. I do not pause to catch my breath when climbing stairs. I do not avoid hikes or sports for fear of failure. But — no mistake — I am fat. I am far above my normal weight. I carry 205 pounds on a frame built for someone forty pounds lighter. [PDF: Body mass index and health, from the USDA.]
How does this relate to personal finance? Your health is your most important asset. Not your house. Not your car. Not your job. Not your retirement account. These are secondary. Your health is your most important asset. Even someone as young as I am (37) can face serious financial repercussions from being overweight.
According to the USDA, “overweight or obese people are more likely than those at normal weight to have medical problems such as high blood pressure, high cholesterol, stroke, diabetes, and heart disease.” Furthermore:
According to the Centers for Disease Prevention and Control, in 2003-2004, an estimated 66 percent of U.S. adults were overweight or obese, along with 17 percent of children and adolescents. The total annual cost of obesity was an estimated $117 billion in 2000.
Another USDA publication [PDF: “Health Insurance, Obesity, and Its Economic Costs”], breaks down the individual cost of being fat:
The lifetime medical costs related to diabetes, heart disease, high cholesterol, hypertension, and stroke among the obese are $10,000 higher than among the non-obese. Among the overweight, lifetime medical costs can be reduced by $2,200 to $5,300 following a 10-percent reduction in body weight.
Being fat costs money. It costs time. (Overweight people have shorter lifespans.) And it costs mental capital, too. I have experienced these costs in my own life.
Four years ago, I destroyed the ACL in my right knee while playing city-league soccer. I was out of shape and overweight, and my body betrayed me. I spent six months hobbling around, unaware of the injury’s extent. Ultimately, after several doctor’s visits, I had an MRI, surgery, and physical therapy. Even with insurance, this was expensive, especially considering I hadn’t yet wised-up financially. (Cost: roughly $2,000, and a loss of mobility in my right knee.)
Like many who are overweight, I suffer from sleep apnea. Last summer, I spent two nights in a sleep lab. I was given a prescription for a C-PAP machine. (Cost: $734.54, and that damned mask strapped to my face every night for the past year.)
When overweight, I suffer from mild depression. It afflicts my self-esteem and saps my will. (Cost: more mental than financial, thus far.)
Whenever I get heavy, I always join a gym. I pay for a year in advance, go for a couple weeks, and then gradually lose interest. Soon the guilt of having paid hundreds of dollars for a service I am not using becomes overwhelming, which makes matters worse. (Cost: Nothing out-of-pocket — paid by employer. I used to pay $300-$500/year.)
As I get bigger, I’m forced to buy new clothes. My wardrobe increases as I do. I tell myself that I’ll have lots of clothes when I lose the weight, but so far I’m only buying new. (Cost: about $200/year.)
Ultimately I spend more on food to subsidize my fat than I do when I eat healthfully. I’ve never examined the actual costs, but I’m sure all the candy and chips and soda are a steady drain on my funds.
In the past four years, I have paid $4500 because I am fat. And that doesn’t include food.
This post is not a pity party. It is a rallying cry for anyone who is out of shape, who has allowed their physical fitness to lapse. I know many adults who are at a healthy weight but who do not exercise. Just half an hour of exercise every day promotes better fitness. Regular physical activity reduces the risk of cancer and improves self-esteem. Just do it!
If you would like to pursue a course of fitness, here are some helpful tools.
Joe’s Goals, a free online goal tracker.
FitDay, a free web-based diet and weight loss journal. I’ve used this on-and-off for several years. I recommend it.
The book that helped me defeat the fat in 1997 is Realities of Nutrition. It’s fantastic. It doesn’t try to convince you one diet is better than another. It lays out the facts about nutrition. It describes what carbohydrates are, what fat is, what protein is, and explains how they work in concert to give the body energy.
The 29 healthiest foods on the planet
The world’s healthiest foods
When I stood on the scales on the evening of 07 May 1997, I was horrified. I weighed 200 pounds. I was 28 years old. How had I grown so heavy? I steeled my mind. Over the course of the next six months, I dedicated myself to eating healthy and exercising daily. I lost 42 pounds before falling off the wagon on Halloween night. Despite continued battles with food, for two years I remained fit. But then the weight came back.
I am ready to lose it again.
Extra Weight, Higher Costs
I’ve been working with Lauren Muney, a wellness coach (about which more later). This morning, Muney sent me a New York Times article by Damon Darlin which describes how extra weight leads to higher costs.
Being fat costs money — tens of thousands of dollars over a lifetime. Heavy people do not spend more than normal-size people on food, but their life insurance premiums are two to four times as large. They can expect higher medical expenses, and they tend to make less money and accumulate less wealth in their shortened lifetimes. They can have a harder time being hired, and then a harder time winning plum assignments and promotions.
Darlin’s article does a great job of summarizing the financial impact of being overweight. It’s these financial costs (resulting from health problems) that most worry me about being fat. Many find fat people unattractive, but I’m not one of them: I was raised in a family where fat was the norm, and it does not bother me. But the health risks and the associated costs do bother me.
For example, Darlin cites a study from the University of Wisconsin which demonstrated that by supersizing a fast-food order (at an average cost of 67 cents) leads to $6.64 in future medical costs for an obese man, and $3.46 in future medical costs for an obese woman. Super-sizing does not save money.
Many people do find the overweight unattractive, and consciously or not, they treat them differently. There is a social cost to being fat. (More here.) Studies have repeatedly demonstrated that “weight bias”, discrimination against the obese, is at least as strong as race bias. (The article points to Harvard University’s Implicit Association Test, where you can check your own internal biases.)
Studies have also demonstrated that there’s a direct correlation between obesity and net worth. The heavier the person, the less they earn. My initial reaction is that it’s impossible to determine which is the cause and which is the effect — does obesity lead to low net worth, or does low net worth lead to obesity? — but apparently this is a known problem with the research. Regardless, significant weight loss can lead to an increase in wealth.
A baby boomer whose [Body Mass Index (B.M.I.)] drops from 27.5, the middle of the overweight category, to 21.7, the middle of the normal category, sees an increase in wealth of $4,085.
Since first writing about my weight problem in October, I’ve made tremendous progress. This is largely due to Muney, a reader of this site. She wrote that because I had helped her make progress on her wealth, she’d like to help me make progress on my health. After working with her for a month, the results have been outstanding. I’ve lost weight. But more than that I feel great: my physical and mental well-being are the best they’ve been in years.
I look forward to continued progress, and to removing myself from the risks and costs associated with obesity. Right now, I’m going for a walk!
Just down the street from my family’s Venice home, workers are smoothing plaster inside a 6,000-square-foot new house whose owners, a young couple from the Bay Area, will soon have a property worth $7 million.
Across from that mansion-to-be is an 11-unit apartment building whose cracked stucco could use a new coat of its mustard-colored paint. The families that live there come mostly from Oaxaca, Mexico, and many of the adults work as employees at restaurants in Venice and Marina del Rey.
Los Angeles is a city historically segregated by race and class. But in our slice of the city, multimillionaires in newly built villas live side by side with the affordable apartments of the people who clean their pools, watch their children and cook their El Pollo Loco orders.
Advertisement
My family’s neighborhood may be an outlier — or moving inexorably toward full gentrification — but at least for the last three decades, it has also served as vibrant proof that the notion that affordable housing lowers property values is overblown, if not flat-out wrong.
That enduring belief has contributed to widespread not-in-my-backyard opposition that makes building affordable housing in higher-income areas so difficult.
“It is total NIMBYism,” said Adlai Wertman of USC’s Marshall School of Business. “It’s ‘I want to help poor people, just not in my neighborhood.’”
Our neighborhood provides plenty of anecdotal evidence that mixing housing and income levels doesn’t sink property values. In a four-block area, low- and moderate-income apartment buildings and multifamily units are sprinkled among six mega-mansions and older, middle-class single-family homes like ours, which was built in 1924. The lower-income units are not government-subsidized.
In the mustard-colored building, Marin Ceja, a self-employed pool technician, pays $2,000 per month for his two-bedroom apartment, more than $3,000 less than the average for a two-bedroom rental in Venice. Assuming Ceja’s across-the-street new neighbors financed their home with 20% down, they’ll be paying $20,000 per month.
The presence of lower-cost multiunit buildings hasn’t driven down the resale value of homes. The average sale price of homes in Venice has increased by a million dollars in the last 10 years. In the last year, while home prices have declined by 7% countywide, in our neighborhood they rose over 4%.
Advertisement
Numerous studies show our corner of Venice, east of Lincoln Boulevard and north of Venice Boulevard, is not unique. Low-income housing has a positive impact, or no impact, on neighborhood house values, according to a majority of studies reviewed by A-Mark Foundation, the research and policy nonprofit I lead. Two studies concluded that low-income housing had negative effects on property values in some specific cases.
One 10-year study that looked at property values in the least affordable housing markets in the U.S. — 45% of which were in California — found that newly built low-income housing had no effect on state property values.
That’s been the experience of affordable housing builders too. Loren Bloch, who spent decades developing affordable housing in Southern California, told me that when he insisted on building 22 low-income housing units along with 37 market-rate units in Oxnard in 2001, other developers thought he was crazy.
“But people sucked them up,” he said, “and they lived side by side together.”
Oxnard real estate prices around Bloch’s development have risen by double digits since then.
Tom Safran spent four decades convincing wary, lawyered-up residents that mixed neighborhoods work for everyone, so long as the building quality is high.
After finally winning city approval for 154 affordable units in Del Rey on Culver Boulevard, Safran faced off against a handful of neighbors whose lawsuits delayed construction two and a half years, before they settled on 124 units — which more than 1,800 people applied for in 2013.
His company faced similar opposition to his Thatcher Yard development in Venice, despite bringing in Steve Giannetti, who designed Lady Gaga’s Malibu spread, as architect. Residents fought to scale back the project from 160 units to 98, overruling Safran’s contention that as long as valuable Venice land was available, it should house the most diverse kinds of units, and the largest number of them, that was reasonable.
“Communities work best when they have a range of incomes,” Safran told me. “When people who teach school or do policing or work behind the counter in the dry cleaners don’t have to drive an hour and a half, it creates a more successful society.”
In Los Angeles County, home prices have risen twice as much as wages in the last decade, and the lack of affordable housing drives homelessness, poverty, population loss and glaring income inequality. That’s why Gov. Gavin Newsom and L.A. Mayor Karen Bass have both called for every neighborhood, rich, poor or in-between, to accept affordable housing.
But the more upscale the neighborhood, the more resistance there is. Upper-income residents who stand in opposition wield a variety of excuses — increased traffic (Manhattan Beach), overcrowding (Redondo Beach), or potential harm to migrating mountain lions (Woodside, really?).
“We’ll never get affordable housing in the Palisades,” Wertman said of the upscale Democratic-voting neighborhood. “The world will end first.”
Former President Trump, as he often does, said the quiet part out loud in 2020 when he blocked an Obama-era rule intended to reduce racial segregation in communities. “I am happy to inform all of the people living their Suburban Lifestyle Dream that you will no longer be bothered or financially hurt by having low income housing built in your neighborhood,” Trump tweeted at the time.
But even studies looking specifically at “more affluent” neighborhoods have found the fears of affordable housing tanking housing prices and increasing crime are unfounded. A 2022 UC Irvine study found that on average in such areas in Orange County, home values increased following the opening of affordable housing.
“Overall, the data on actual home sales do not support the claim that affordable housing depresses local home values,” the authors concluded.
A 2019 Stanford University study showed that housing built using low-income housing tax credits led to a decrease in crime in lower-income neighborhoods and “does not increase crime in high-income areas.”
The Stanford study, unlike several others, did find that low-income housing built in higher-income neighborhoods decreased property values by 2.5%. That could be a result of increased housing supply, said Gary Painter, professor of social innovation at USC, or of residents preferring not to live near multifamily buildings. No studies have disentangled the impact of these two possibilities, he said.
Back to my neighborhood, where below-market rents mix with high-dollar mortgages and taqueros live beside techies. The diversity is not the product of planning so much as timing and evolution. It would be hard to replicate now, not least because land costs combined with beachside NIMBYism have made Venice a notoriously difficult place to build new housing of any kind. (The total number of housing units permitted now in Venice is half the number permitted in the late 1950s, according to an analysis by Dario Alvarez, president of community planning firm Pacific Urbanism.)
When I described the neighborhood to Painter, he said there’s a term for the older multiunit buildings around single-family homes like mine: naturally occurring affordable housing. As a building reaches the end of its useful life, it has fewer amenities and is less valued in the marketplace and therefore is more affordable.
But the result, at least for as long as we’ve been living here, is a vision of what L.A. neighborhoods could and should be: economically and racially mixed.
Painter said that to get that ideal citywide, “we need to build units in all areas of the city.” And not just more affordable housing, but more housing of all kinds.
“The reason that’s fair is that if we have more units, they are a lot easier to be made affordable. We need housing everywhere,” he said.
The more we build in every neighborhood, the more we’ll open up opportunities for people of all incomes to live together. Contrary to popular belief, if we do that, the world won’t end — your property values won’t even go down.
Rob Eshman is chief executive of the A-Mark Foundation.
According to Jeff Berman, General Partner at the venture capital firm, Camber Creek, one in three recent home buyers made an offer before even seeing a home in person. This revolutionary trend brought about by the adoption of cutting edge PropTech, is one of the subjects Realty Biz News discussed with Berman last week.
RealtyBiz: Why do you think property technologies have lagged behind the trend to adopt technology-based solutions set by other industries?
Jeff Berman: The most common reason given is that real estate is a “dinosaur” industry. And while that may be true to a certain extent – after all, many of the processes involved in property purchase/sale/lease haven’t changed in hundreds of years – that’s only half of the story. The other half requires us to examine the root of innovation…which is typically borne of necessity (as the old proverb goes, “necessity is the mother of invention”). And the fact of the matter is that players in the real estate industry have been making (a lot of) money going about their business(es) in a decidedly 1.0 manner. But I think that time is ending. Over the last few years we have noticed a sharp uptick in interest in technology from real estate industry insiders. They’ve woken up to the fact that technology is no longer a “nice to have” but a “need to have”.
RealtyBiz:We are seeing hundreds of millions in funding for proptech of every description. What do you see as “game-changing” technology in the space?
Jeff Berman: One of the fundamental ways technology is changing the real estate industry is in workflow/process. Let’s take a typical real estate (buy/sell) transaction. Even with the best stock trading apps at our disposal, you still have to follow a fairly cumbersome process to execute a transaction. There’s discovery (i.e. finding the property you want to buy or listing the property you want to sell), diligence, appraisal, title, legal, financing and settlement. And you have to pay a different set of professionals for each step along the way. The analog I like to use is the stock market 30 years ago. Back then, if you wanted to trade stock you would call a broker who would call a market maker who would call the trading floor to get the trade executed.
Now you can buy stock with a few swipes on your phone. So it will be with real estate. And while we’re still in early innings of this transformation, there are a number of companies developing software tools that are bringing that reality that much closer. For example, Camber Creek portfolio company Bowery built the world’s first end to end technology enabled appraisal firm cutting down the time to generate an appraisal – which is needed in most real estate transactions and is therefore a potential bottleneck – by up to 75% and often at less cost. It is companies like Bowery which will bring ‘game-changing’ technology to the fore.
Realty Biz: You and other experts have predicted that virtual reality (VR) will be an $80 billion dollar market by 2024. What kinds of tools do you see leading this dynamic market?
Jeff Berman: The promise of augmented reality and virtual reality in real estate is borne of the number of potential applications for the technology. From improved digital home/office tours to virtual collaboration – the possibilities are endless. In time, these technologies will reshape how we interact with our homes, our experience of walking down a city street, and how we conceive of offices altogether.
Realty Biz: – How do you pick a winner in a race to fill this property tech void?
Jeff Berman: Our (i.e. Camber Creek’s) ability to identify and scale market leaders is built on our unmatched network of decision-makers and principals in all real estate asset classes. This network provides the firm with a platform to rapidly test potential companies during diligence to determine actionable facts and propriety insights. We can literally “try before we buy” allowing us to find winning companies prior to making an investment. Once an investment is made, our hands-on approach provides portfolio companies access to the network and significant new revenue opportunities. This allows us to de-risk investments, accelerate the growth of portfolio companies, and create exceptional returns for investors.
Takeaway
Berman and other industry experts predict that by 2021, the market for virtual reality and augmented reality technologies will reach $108 billion. Virtual reality tech will become an $80 billion market by 2025, an of this, more than $2.5 billion will come from real estate. The Camber Creek executive’s suggestion that PropTech is a necessity rather than a nicety now, this is the takeaway every forward-thinking real estate professional should glean. For this analyst, I try and imagine a modern movie studio still trying to market silent films. This is the nature of the paradigm AI, AR, and machine learning are causing today. An investment in these technologies is an investment of necessity, in the infrastructure that is the real estate business.
Phil Butler is a former engineer, contractor, and telecommunications professional who is editor of several influential online media outlets including part owner of Pamil Visions with wife Mihaela. Phil began his digital ramblings via several of the world’s most noted tech blogs, at the advent of blogging as a form of journalistic license. Phil is currently top interviewer, and journalist at Realty Biz News.
If you’re in the mood for a fun and cheesy action movie circa the 90s, this list will guide you through a great 90s movie marathon. From corny 90s staples like ticking clocks and invincible heroes to the predictable inspirational speeches, it’s so bad it’s good.
1. Face/Off (1997)
Topping off the list, we have 1997’s Face/Off starring none other than corny movie kings John Travolta and Nicholas Cage. This movie has a respectable rating on IMDb of 7.3 and was nominated for an Oscar for Best Sound Editing.
The plot is certifiably camp: an FBI agent gets a facial transplant to take on the identity of a criminal mastermind that killed his son to stop a terrorist attack. However, the killer whose face he’s transplanting wakes up too soon and is not too thrilled about it.
2. True Lies (1994)
Numerous cinephiles boast about how good True Lies is and recommend it. This 1994 film, directed by James Cameron, stars Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jamie Lee Curtis.
A fearless secret agent who takes down terrorists deals with inner turmoil when he discovers his wife could be having an affair with a used-car salesman while he’s dealing with the takedown of a terrorist who is trying to get nukes into the country.
3. Demolition Man (1993)
Several film enthusiasts insist Demolition Man should be on your corny 90s movie list. It came out in 1993 and stars Sylvester Stallone and Wesley Snipes in a tale about a police officer who has been in suspended animation (frozen) for several years. Now that society is crime-free, he is unfrozen to pursue a nemesis of his that is wreaking havoc on the law-abiding society.
4. Last Action Hero (1993)
One claims Last Action Hero is one of the best answers to a request for corny 90s action movies. Starring the ubiquitous Arnold Schwarzenegger, this 1993 action flick is about how a young movie buff is transported into the cinematic universe of his favorite action movie character thanks to a magic ticket.
5. Point Break (1991)
Point Break was a coveted corny 90s classic on many users’ lists. The movie stars Keanu Reeves and Patrick Swayze, but Reeves’ performance is famously ridiculed in this film. It’s about an FBI agent (Reeves) who infiltrates a group of surfers involved in several bank robberies.
As he befriends the leader of the group Bodhi (Swayze), things get complicated. Despite being directed by Kathryn Bigelow, one of only three women to win an Oscar for Best Director, it’s often lambasted as a terrible film with a cult following. Rated 7.2 on IMDb, it must be a sizeable cult.
6. The Fifth Element (1997)
A film lover listed a bunch of movies, including The Fifth Element, one of my favorites. This is peak Bruce Willis cinema; everyone is at the top of their game. So you have Gary Oldman as the cartoonish villain, Milla Jovovich as the supremely powerful alien in human form with strange orange hair, and Bruce Willis as the former special forces agent who saves the day.
In the future, a cab driver (Willis) accidentally becomes the central target in a search for a legendary cosmic weapon. This 1997 film is clearly loved by most, as it’s rated 7.6 on IMDb.
7. Batman Returns (1992)
Tim Burton’s 1992 Batman Returns is a sequel to Batman. It explores iconic characters like The Penguin, played by Danny Devito, and Catwoman, played by Michelle Pfeiffer, and of course, Michael Keaton stars as Batman. It was nominated for 2 Oscars and has earned a 7.1 rating on IMDb, so corny or not, it’s cemented its way into cinema history as an iconic Batman film.
8. The Rock (1996)
The Rock is a 1996 film that users were most excited about, with one person referring to it as “arguably the pinnacle of the action genre.” It’s rated 7.4 on IMDb and directed by Michael Bay.
A renegade general, played by Ed Harris, threatens the government to launch rockets on San Francisco. Still, a mild-mannered chemist and former convict, played by Sean Connery and Nicholas Cage, team up to stop him.
9. Independence Day (1996)
Independence Day, which landed among a few individual’s lists, is a 90s classic starring Will Smith. This 1996 film is about humankind’s willpower to survive an attack on Earth by an alien race. This huge blockbuster film grossed over $817 million worldwide and has a 7 rating on IMDb.
10. Total Recall (1990)
Yet another Arnold Schwarzenegger film makes this list, with 1990’s Total Recall which is beloved much more than its 2012 remake. Rated 7.5 on IMDb, it’s about a man who has had false memories about living on Mars implanted into his brain, and the people responsible are trying to have him killed.
Source: Reddit.
Who is one actress you can never stand watching, no matter their role? After polling the internet, these were the top-voted actresses that people couldn’t stand watching.
10 Actresses People Despise Watching Regardless of Their Role
These 7 Celebrities are Genuinely Good People
We’ve all heard the famous adage that “no publicity is bad publicity,” and while it tends to be accurate, there are certainly exceptions. But what about those few stars who stay out of the limelight and get along without a hint of trouble?
These 7 Celebrities are Genuinely Good People
Have you ever known someone and thought you liked them—until you learned about their hobbies? Then you get to know them and then you’re like, “Wow, red flag.” Well, you’re not alone.
These 10 Activities Are an Immediate Red Flag
Some celebrities definitely seem to enjoy the limelight and keep working to stay in the public eye. While others quickly move out of the spotlight. Many of these actors and actresses stepped out of the spotlight to live a more private life without constant media pressures.
10 Celebrities That Made the Big Times Then Disappeared Off The Face of the Earth
We’ve all been there – sitting through a movie that we can’t help but cringe at, but somehow it still manages to hold a special place in our hearts.
These 10 Terrible Movies Are Still People’s Favorites
An eviction notice is a written statement informing you the landlord believes you’re in violation of the rental agreement. Depending on why you’re being evicted, the type of notice you receive and the state you live in, you may need to vacate the property by a certain time. But if you have an eviction notice in your past, you might be worried about getting approved for a new rental situation.
Find out below what happens if you get evicted, including whether you can or should fight the notice and whether you can get a new rental. As with any situation involving your credit and money, being prepared with knowledge can often make a huge difference in the outcome.
How Does Being Evicted Affect Your Credit?
Evictions aren’t included on your credit report, and neither are certain types of public records such as eviction judgments. However, that doesn’t mean an eviction leaves your credit squeaky clean or that potential future landlords won’t know about your eviction history.
First, collection accounts or debts leading up to your eviction do appear on your credit report. If you fell behind on rent and tried to right the situation with a personal loan that you also fell behind on, for example, that could hurt your credit. And if the landlord turned uncollected rents over to a collection agency at any point, that can also negatively impact your score.
An outstanding debt (such a collections account) on your credit report can significantly impact your overall credit score. In fact, your payment history accounts for up to 35% of your credit score. So, just one missed payment, including one missed rent payment, can drop your credit score.
Second, judgments related to evictions are a matter of public record. Future landlords might not see them on your credit report, but they can easily find them by searching court records. Many landlords use tenant-screening services that provide rental backgrounds on prospective tenants, and court records related to evictions are typically included.
If you’re having trouble making your monthly rent payments, consider setting up a budget to track your spending. This step may help you avoid a potential eviction.
Does an Eviction Go on Your Credit Report?
No, landlords can’t report evictions to the credit bureaus because these agencies don’t collect this type of information. However, this doesn’t mean future landlords can’t find out about the eviction. Court judgments, including evictions, are public records. This means landlords can still find out if you have an eviction in your past.
While searching public records can be a cumbersome process, many landlords use tenant screening services to conduct background checks on potential tenants. This service makes it easier for landlords to learn about past evictions. So, even though an eviction won’t directly impact your credit, it can affect your ability to rent in the future.
Legitimate Reasons for Eviction
Specific landlord rights vary from state to state, but there are several reasons a landlord may have the right to evict you, including:
Failure to pay rent: If you fail to pay rent within the grace period, your landlord can start the eviction process. The judge will likely give you a set number of days to make the payment. If you still fail to pay, you may be forced to leave the rental property.
Lease violation: When you rent an apartment, you must abide by the terms of the lease. If you fail to do so, the landlord can evict you. For example, if your lease says no pets yet you have pets on the property, the landlord can break the lease and require you to move.
Illegal activity: If you’re doing something illegal on the rental property, such as using drugs or committing domestic violence, a landlord has the right to evict you.
Property damage: If you willfully damage the property or make renovations without the landlord’s permission, this could be grounds for eviction. It’s important to understand the terms of your lease before signing it.
End of lease: When you sign a lease, it should cover a set term, such as 1 year or month-to-month. Unless you sign a new lease or your lease automatically extends the terms of the previous lease, you must move at the end of the term. If you have a month-to-month lease, your landlord must give you a 30-day notice to move. If you fail to move out of the property at the end of the lease or within the 30-day notice period, your landlord can take steps to evict you.
Illegitimate Reasons for Eviction
Landlords can’t evict tenants without cause. Once a lease is signed, both landlords and tenants are bound to its terms. It’s illegal for landlords to discriminate against their tenants and evict them based on their color, race, gender or national origin.
Additionally, landlords can’t evict tenants as retaliation. For example, your landlord can’t evict you because you complain about property conditions or request repairs.
Can You Dispute an Eviction?
Yes, you can dispute an eviction. A legal eviction requires a judgment from the courts. Before a judgment is rendered, there must first be a court hearing.
You have the right to attend this court hearing, hire an attorney and present your evidence to the court. It’s important to be present at this hearing because the judge can make a final decision without your input.
What Can Happen If an Eviction Is on Your Credit Report?
If you’re legally evicted from your rental, it won’t be on your credit report. However, any unpaid rent balance that you still owe your landlord can end up on your credit report. If this happens, it’s likely to impact your credit score.
It’s important to pay off this balance as quickly as possible. This step can minimize the impact on your credit score. If there’s an incorrect unpaid rent balance on your credit report, you should take steps to remove that information. You can do this by writing to the credit reporting agencies and providing evidence that the information listed on your report is wrong.
What to Do If You Receive an Eviction Notice
Eviction processes vary by state. Eforms, a site that provides sample eviction notices for landlords, summarizes the eviction process for each state. A good first step is to find out exactly what the process in your state is so you know how to respond appropriately to an eviction.
Eviction notices come in two main types: curable and incurable. Curable notices detail how the landlord thinks you broke the lease agreement and how you can fix it. If you cure the issue, the eviction is retracted. Incurable notices don’t have any fix and simply require that you vacate the premises by a certain date.
A common reason for an eviction notice is that the landlord claims the rent hasn’t been paid. In many cases, this would be a curable eviction notice. If you catch up on your rent, the landlord might not move forward with the eviction.
In many cases, if you don’t respond to the eviction notice to cure it or move out, the landlord must go to court to get a judgment against you. This allows law enforcement to require you to move out of the property.
You usually have an option to appear in court and fight the eviction. For example, if you’re withholding rent because the landlord has not fixed something that is his or her responsibility under the lease, you could use that as a defense.
A judge might rule on your side, requiring the landlord to make those repairs before you are required to catch up your rent. But keep in mind that we’re not legal experts—if you find yourself in this situation, we recommend consulting with a lawyer.
What Happens If You Get Evicted?
If you know you’re at fault or the judgment doesn’t go your way, you are likely going to have to move out of the rental property. It’s important to know how the eviction might impact your credit history and chances of getting another rental in this case.
Can You Still Rent an Apartment If You Have Been Evicted?
If you’ve been evicted from a townhouse, apartment or rental home, it may be difficult to qualify for a new rental if a potential landlord checks your rental history. If you have an eviction hampering your ability to find a place to live, you have a few options:
Try to find a private landlord who doesn’t use screening services or check credit history
Look into reporting any rent that you’re paying—it could help your credit score
Try negotiating with a potential landlord by offering a large security deposit or several months of rent up front
Find a cosigner with good credit to live with
Live with friends who already have a home and history of good payments
Try to Make Amends
If you were evicted for unpaid rent, the best way to make amends is to reach out to your former landlord or collection agency and make up those missed payments. Doing so could make finding a new place easier, especially if you get proof in writing that you made good on the old debts.
How to Avoid Eviction in the First Place
Abiding by your rental agreement is the most important thing you can do to avoid being evicted. Your agreement is a legally binding contract, so understanding everything expected of you—from maintenance of the property to noise restrictions and timely rent payment—is critical, as is knowing the tenant laws in your state.
If you have problems, talk to your landlord as soon as possible. Things happen, but landlords often appreciate knowing you want to do the right thing, and communication is essential. Also keep in mind that finding new tenants is a hassle most landlords would rather avoid. They can often be willing to work with you, but you have to take the first step.
Keep an Eye on Your Credit
Even if you do everything you’re supposed to do, when you live in someone else’s property, keep in mind that you might have to move unexpectedly. A landlord could potentially sell their property, or you could decide that the landlord isn’t someone you want to rent from anymore, for example. Keeping an eye on your credit regularly helps you improve your score, which can help you secure a new rental property as needed.
Check out Credit.com’s Credit Report Card. It gives you the everything you need to know about all the factors that make up your credit score, so you know exactly what areas you need to work on to improve your score.
The Jefferson Avenue commercial district in Buffalo, New York, is anchored by a supermarket.
There are dozens of other businesses and services along the 12-block corridor — a couple of bank branches, a library, a coffee shop, gas stations, a small plaza with a dollar store and a primary care clinic and a business incubator for entrepreneurs of color.
But Tops Friendly Markets, the only grocery store on Buffalo’s vast East Side, is the center of activity. More than just a place to buy food, pick up medications and use an ATM, the store is a communal gathering space in a predominantly Black neighborhood that, for generations, has been segregated, isolated and disenfranchised from the wealthier — and whiter — parts of the city.
Which explains how it came to be the site of a mass shooting on a spring day in May of last year. On that Saturday, a gunman, who lived 200 miles away in another part of the state, drove to Jefferson Avenue and went into Tops, and in just a few minutes killed 10 people, injured three and inflicted mass trauma across the community.
It is a scenario that has sadly, and repeatedly, played out in other parts of the country that have experienced mass shootings. But this one came with a twist: The gunman’s intention was to kill as many Black people as possible.
To achieve that, he specifically targeted a ZIP code with one of the highest percentages of Black residents in New York state. All 10 who died that day were Black.
“The mere fact that someone can research, ‘Where will the greatest number of Black people be … on a Saturday morning,’ that’s not by chance,” said Franchelle Parker, a community organizer and executive director of Open Buffalo, a nonprofit focused on racial, economic and ecological justice. “That’s not a mistake. It’s a community that’s been deeply segregated for decades.”
The day of the shooting, Parker, who grew up in nearby Niagara Falls, was driving to Tops, where she planned to buy a donut and an unsweetened iced tea before heading into the Open Buffalo office, which is located a block away from Tops. The mother of two had intended to complete the mundane task of cleaning up her desk — “old coffee cups and stuff” — after a busy week.
She saw the news on Twitter and didn’t know if she should keep driving to Jefferson Avenue or turn around and go back home. She eventually picked the latter.
When she showed up the next day, there were thousands of people grieving in the streets. “The only way that I could explain my feeling, it was almost like watching an old war movie when a bomb had gone off and someone’s in, like, shell shock. That’s how it felt,” said Parker, vividly recounting the community’s collective trauma in a meeting room tucked inside of Open Buffalo’s second-story office on Jefferson Avenue.
Almost immediately following the May 14, 2022, massacre, which was the second-deadliest mass shooting in the United States last year, conversations locally and nationally turned to the harsh realities of the East Side and how long-standing factors that affect the daily life of residents — racism, poverty and inequity — made the community an ideal target for a white supremacist.
Now, more than a year after the tragedy, there is growing concern that not enough is being done fast enough to begin to dismantle those factors. And amid those conversations, there are mounting calls for the banking industry — whose historical policies and practices helped cement the racial segregation and disinvestment that ultimately shaped the East Side — to leverage its collective power and influence to band together in an effort to create systemic change.
The ideas about how banks should support the East Side and better embed themselves in the neighborhood vary by people and organizations. But the basic argument is the same: Banks, in their role as financiers and because of the industry’s history of lending discrimination, are obligated to bring forth economic prosperity in disinvested communities like the East Side.
I know banks are often looked upon sort of like a panacea, but I don’t particularly see it that way. I think others have a role to play in all of this.
Chiwuike Owunwanne, corporate responsibility officer at KeyBank
“Banks have been very good at providing charitable contributions to the Black community. They get an ‘A’ for that,” said The Rev. George Nicholas, an East Side pastor who is also CEO of the Buffalo Center for Health Equity, a four-year-old enterprise focused on racial, geographic and economic health disparities. “But doing the things that banks can do in terms of being a catalyst for revitalization and investment in this community, they have not done that.”
To be sure, banks’ ability to reverse the course of the community isn’t guaranteed — and there is no formula to determine how much accountability they should hold to fix deeply entrenched problems like racism. Several Buffalo-area bankers said that while the Tops shooting heightened the urgency to help the East Side, the industry itself cannot be the sole driver of change.
“There are a lot of institutions … that can certainly play a part in reversing the challenges that we see today,” said Chiwuike “Chi-Chi” Owunwanne, a corporate responsibility officer at KeyBank, the second-largest bank by deposits in Buffalo. “I know banks are often looked upon sort of like a panacea, but I don’t particularly see it that way. I think others have a role to play in all of this.”
A long history of segregation
How the East Side — and the Tops store on Jefferson Avenue — became the destination for a racially motivated mass murderer is a story about racism, segregation and disinvestment.
Even as it bears the nickname “the city of good neighbors,” Buffalo has long been one of the most racially segregated cities in the United States. Of the 114,965 residents who live on the East Side, 59% are Black, according to data from the 2021 U.S. Census American Community Survey. The percentage is even higher in the 14208 ZIP code, where the Tops store is located. In that ZIP code, among 11,029 total residents, nearly 76% are Black, the census data shows.
The city’s path toward racial segregation started in the early 20th century when a small number of job-seeking Black Americans migrated north to Buffalo, a former steel and auto manufacturing hub at the far northwestern end of New York state. Initially, they moved into the same neighborhoods as many of the city’s poorer immigrants and lived just east of what is today the city’s downtown district. As the number of Blacks arriving in Buffalo swelled in the 1940s, they were increasingly confronted with various housing challenges, including racist zoning laws and restrictive deed covenants that kept them from buying homes in more affluent white areas.
Black Buffalonians also faced housing discrimination in the form of redlining, the practice of restricting the flow of capital into minority communities. In 1933, as the Great Depression roiled the economy, a temporary federal agency known as the Home Owners’ Loan Corporation used government bonds to buy out and refinance mortgages of properties that were facing or already in foreclosure. The point was to try to stabilize the nation’s real estate market.
As part of its program, HOLC created maps of American cities, including Buffalo, that used a color coding scheme — green, blue, yellow and red — to convey the perceived riskiness of making loans in certain neighborhoods. Green was considered minimally risky; other areas that were largely populated by immigrant, Black or Latino residents were labeled red and thus determined to be “hazardous.”
“The goal was to free up mortgage capital by going to cities and giving banks a way to unload mortgages, so they could turn around and make more mortgage loans,” said Jason Richardson, senior director of research at the National Community Reinvestment Coalition, an association of more than 750 community-based organizations that advocates for fair lending. “It was kind of a radical concept and it has evolved over the decades into our modern mortgage finance system.”
The Federal Housing Administration, which was established as a permanent agency in 1934, used similar methods to map urban areas and labeled neighborhoods from “A” to “D,” with “A” considered to be the most financially stable and “D” considered the least. Neighborhoods that were largely Black, even relatively stable ones, were put in the “D” category.
The result was that banks, which wanted to be able to sell mortgage loans to the FHA, were largely dissuaded from making loans in “risky” areas. And Buffalo’s East Side, where the majority of Blacks were settling, was deemed risky. Unable to get loans, Blacks couldn’t buy homes, start businesses or build equity. At the same time, large industrial factories on the East Side were closing or moving away, limiting job opportunities and contributing to rising poverty levels.
“Today what we’re left with is the residue of this process where we’ve enshrined … a pattern of economic segregation that favors neighborhoods that had fewer Black people in them and generally ignores neighborhoods that had African Americans living in them,” Richardson said.
Case in point: Research by the National Community Reinvestment Coalition shows that three-quarters of neighborhoods that were once redlined are low- to moderate-income neighborhoods today, and two-thirds of them are majority minority communities.
Adding to the division between Blacks and whites in Buffalo was the construction of a highway called the Kensington Expressway. Built during the 1960s, the below-grade, limited-access highway proved to be a speedy way for suburban workers to get to their downtown jobs. But its construction cut off the already-segregated East Side even more from other parts of the city, displacing residents, devaluing houses and destroying neighborhoods and small businesses.
As a result of those factors and more, many Black residents have become “trapped” on the East Side, according to Dr. Henry Louis Taylor Jr., a professor of urban and regional planning at the University at Buffalo. In 1987, Taylor founded the UB Center for Urban Studies, a research, neighborhood planning and community development institute that works on eliminating inequality in cities and metropolitan regions. In September 2021, eight months before the Tops shooting, the Center for Urban Studies published a report that compared the state of Black Buffalo in 1990 to present-day conditions. The conclusion: Nothing had changed for Blacks over 31 years.
As of 2019, the Black unemployment rate was 11%, the average household income was $42,000 and about 35% of Blacks had incomes that fell below the poverty line, the report said. It also noted that just 32% of Blacks own their homes and that most Blacks in the area live on the East Side.
“Those figures remain virtually unchanged while the actual, physical conditions that existed inside of the community worsened,” Taylor told American Banker in an interview in his sun-filled office at the center, located on the University at Buffalo’s city campus. “When we looked upstream to see what was causing it, it was clear: It was systemic, structural racism.”
Banks’ moral obligations
As the East Side struggled over the decades with rampant poverty, dilapidated housing, vacant lots and disintegrating infrastructure, banks kept a physical presence in the community, albeit a shrinking one. In mid-2000, there were at least 20 bank branches scattered across the East Side, but by mid-2022, the number had fallen to around 14, according to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.’s deposit market share data. The 14 include four new branches that have opened since early 2019 — Northwest Bank, KeyBank, Evans Bank and BankOnBuffalo.
The first two branches, operated by Northwest in Columbus, Ohio, and KeyBank, the banking subsidiary of KeyCorp in Cleveland, were requirements of community benefits agreements negotiated between each bank and the National Community Reinvestment Coalition. In both cases, Northwest and KeyBank agreed to open an office in an underserved community.
Evans Bank opened its first East Side branch in the fall of 2021. The office is located in the basement of an $84 million affordable senior housing building that was financed by Evans, a $2.1 billion-asset community bank headquartered south of Buffalo in Angola, New York.
Banks have been very good at providing charitable contributions to the Black community. They get an ‘A’ for that. But doing the things that banks can do in terms of being a catalyst for revitalization and investment in this community, they have not done that.
The Rev. George Nicholas, an East Side pastor who is also CEO of the Buffalo Center for Health Equity
On the community and economic development front, banks have had varying levels of participation. Buffalo-based M&T Bank, which holds a whopping 64% of all deposits in the Buffalo market and is one of the largest private employers in the region, has made consistent investments in the East Side by supporting Westminster Community Charter School, a kindergarten through eighth-grade school, and the Buffalo Promise Neighborhood, a nonprofit organization focused on improving access to education in the city’s 14215 ZIP code.
Currently, Buffalo Promise Neighborhood operates four schools. In addition to Westminster, it runs Highgate Heights Elementary, also K-8, as well as two academies that serve children ages six weeks through pre-kindergarten. Twelve M&T employees are dedicated to the program, according to the Buffalo Promise Neighborhood website. The bank has invested $31.5 million into the program since its 2010 launch, a spokesperson said.
Other banks are making contributions in other ways. In addition to the Jefferson Avenue branch and as part of its community benefits plan, Northwest Bank, a $14.2 billion-asset bank, supports a financial education center through a partnership with Belmont Housing Resources of Western New York. Meanwhile, the $198 billion-asset KeyBank gave $30 million for bridge and construction financing for Northland Workforce Training Center, a $100 million redevelopment project at a former manufacturing complex on the East Side that was partially funded by the state.
BankOnBuffalo’s East Side branch is located inside the center, which offers KeyBank training in advanced manufacturing and clean energy technology careers. A subsidiary of $5.6 billion-asset CNB Financial in Clearfield, Pennsylvania, BankOnBuffalo’s office opened a month after the shooting. The timing was coincidental, but important, said Michael Noah, president of BankOnBuffalo.
“I think it just cemented the point that this is a place we need to be, to be able to be part of these communities and this community specifically, and be able to build this community up,” Noah said.
In terms of public-private collaboration, some banks have been involved in a deeper way. In 2019, New York state, which had already been pouring $1 billion into Buffalo to help revitalize the economy, announced a $65 million economic development fund for the East Side. The initiative is focused on stabilizing neighborhoods, increasing homeownership, redeveloping commercial corridors including Jefferson Avenue, improving historical assets, expanding workforce training and development and supporting small businesses and entrepreneurship.
In conjunction with the funding, a public-private partnership called East Side Avenues was created to provide capital and organizational support to the projects happening along four East Side commercial corridors. Six banks — Charlotte, North Carolina-based Bank of America, the second-largest bank in the nation with $2.5 trillion of assets; M&T, which has $203 billion of assets; KeyBank; Warsaw, New York-based Five Star Bank, which has about $6 billion of assets; Northwest and Evans — are among the 14 private and philanthropic organizations that pledged a combined $8.4 million to pay for five years’ worth of operational support, governance and finance, fundraising and technical assistance to support the nonprofits doing the work.
Laura Quebral, director of the University at Buffalo Regional Institute, which is managing East Side Avenues, said the banks were the first corporations to step up to the request for help, and since then have provided loans and other products and education to keep the program moving.
Their participation “is a signal to the community that banks cared and were invested and were willing to collaborate around something,” Quebral said. “Being at the table was so meaningful.”
Richard Hamister is Northwest’s New York regional president and former co-chair of East Side Avenues. Hamister, who is based in Buffalo, said banks are a “community asset” that have a responsibility to lift up all communities, including those where conditions have arisen that allow it to be a target of racism like the East Side.
“We operate under federal charters, so we have an obligation to the community to not only provide products and services they need but also support when you go through a tragedy like that,” Hamister said. “We also have a moral obligation to try to help when things are broken … and to do what we can. We can’t fix everything, but we’ve got to fix our piece and try to help where we can.”
In the wake of a tragedy
After the massacre, there was a flurry of activity within banks and other organizations, local and out-of-town, to respond to the immediate needs of East Side residents. With the community’s only supermarket closed indefinitely, much of the response centered around food collection and distribution. Three of M&T’s five East Side branches, including the Jefferson Avenue branch across the street from Tops, became food distribution sites for weeks after the shooting. On two consecutive Fridays, Northwest provided around 200 free lunches to the community, using a neighborhood caterer who is also the bank’s customer. And BankOnBuffalo collected employee donations that amounted to more than 20 boxes of toiletries and other items that were distributed to a nonprofit.
At the same time, M&T, KeyBank and other banks began financial donations to organizations that could support the immediate needs of the community. KeyBank provided a van that delivered food and took people to nearby grocery stores. Providence, Rhode Island-based Citizens Financial Group, whose ATM inside Tops was inaccessible during the store’s temporary closure, installed a fee-free ATM near a community center located about a half-mile north of Tops, and later put a permanent ATM inside the center that remains there today. And M&T rolled out a short-term loan program to provide capital to East Side small-business owners.
One of the funds that benefited from banks’ support was the Buffalo Together Community Response Fund, which has raised $6.2 million to address the long-term needs of the East Side.
Bank of America and Evans Bank each donated $100,000 to the fund, whose list of major sponsors includes four other banks — JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, M&T and KeyBank. Thomas Beauford Jr., a former banker who is co-chair of the response fund, said banks, by and large, directed their resources into organizations where the dollars would have an immediate impact.
“Banks said, ‘Hey, you know … it doesn’t make sense for us to try to build something right now. … We will fund you in the work you’re doing,'” said Beauford, who has been president and CEO of the Buffalo Urban League since the fall of 2020. “I would say banks showed up in a big way.”
Fourteen months later, banks say they are committed to playing a positive role on the East Side. For the second year, KeyBank is sponsoring a farmers’ market on the East Side, an attempt to help fill the food desert in the community. Last fall, BankOnBuffalo launched a mobile “bank on wheels” truck that’s stationed on the East Side every Wednesday. The 34-foot-long truck, which is staffed by two people and includes an ATM and a printer to make debit cards, was in the works before the shooting, and will eventually make four stops per week around the Buffalo area.
Evans has partnered with the city of Buffalo to construct seven market-rate single family homes on vacant lots on the East Side. The relationship with the city is an example of how banks can pair up with other entities to create something meaningful and lasting, more than they might be able to do on their own, said Evans President and CEO David Nasca.
The bank has “picked areas” where it can use its resources to make a difference, Nasca said.
“I don’t think the root causes can be ameliorated” by banks alone, he said. “We can’t just grant money. It has to be within our construct of a financial institution that invests and supports the public-private partnership. … All the oars [need to be] pulling together or this doesn’t work.”
‘Little or no engagement with minorities’
All of these efforts are, of course, welcomed by the community, but there is still criticism that banks haven’t done enough to make up for their past contributions to segregating the city. And perhaps more importantly, some of that criticism centers on banks failing to do their most basic function in society — provide credit.
In 2021, the New York State Department of Financial Services issued a report about redlining in Buffalo. The regulator looked at banks and nonbank lenders and found that loans made to minorities in the Buffalo metro area made up 9.74% of total loans in Buffalo. Overall, Black residents comprise about 33% of Buffalo’s total population of more than 276,000, census data shows.
The department said its investigation showed the lower percentage was not due to “excessive denials of loan applications based on race or ethnicity,” but rather that “these companies had little or no engagement with minorities and generally made scant effort to do so.”
“The unsurprising result of this has been that few minority customers or individuals seeking homes in majority-minority neighborhoods have made loan applications … in the first instance.”
Furthermore, accusations of redlining persist today, even though the practice of discriminating in housing based on race was outlawed by the Fair Housing Act of 1968.
In 2014, Evans was accused of redlining by the New York State Attorney General, which said the community bank was specifically avoiding making mortgage loans on the East Side. The bank, which at the time had $874 million of assets, agreed to pay $825,000 to settle the case, but Nasca maintains that the charges were unfounded. He points to the fact that the bank never had a fair lending or fair housing violation, no specific incidents were ever claimed and that the bank’s Community Reinvestment Act exam never found evidence of discriminatory or illegal credit practices.
The bank has a greater presence on the East Side today, but that’s because it has grown in size, not because it is trying to make up for previous accusations of redlining, he said.
“Ten years ago, our involvement [on the East Side] certainly wasn’t what you’re seeing today,” Nasca said. “We were looking to participate more, but we were participating within our means and our reach. As we have grown, we have built more resources to be able to do more.”
Shortly after accusations were made against Evans, Five Star Bank, the banking arm of Financial Institutions in Warsaw, New York, was also accused of redlining by the state Attorney General. Five Star, which has been growing its presence in the Buffalo market for several years, wound up settling the charges for $900,000 and agreeing to open two branches in the city of Rochester.
KeyBank is currently being accused of redlining by the National Community Reinvestment Coalition. In a 2022 report, the group said that KeyBank is engaging in systemic redlining by making very few home purchase loans in certain neighborhoods where the majority of residents are Black. Buffalo is one of several cities where the bank’s mortgage lending “effectively wall[ed] out Black neighborhoods,” especially parts of the East Side, the report said.
KeyBank denied the allegations. In March, the coalition asked regulators to investigate the bank’s mortgage lending practices.
Beyond providing more credit, some community members believe that banks should be playing a larger role in addressing other needs on the East Side. And the list of needs runs the gamut from more grocery stores to safe, affordable housing to infrastructure improvements such as street and sidewalk repairs.
Alexander Wright is founder of the African Heritage Food Co-op, an initiative launched in 2016 to address the dearth of grocery store options on the East Side, where he grew up. Wright said that while banks’ philanthropic efforts are important, banks in general “need to be in a place of remediation” to fix underlying issues that the industry, as a whole, helped create. (After publication of this story, Wright left his job as CEO of the African Heritage Food Co-Op.)
Aside from charitable donations, banks should be finding more ways to work directly with East Side business owners and entrepreneurs, helping them with capital-building support along the way, Wright said. One place to start would be technical assistance by way of bank volunteers.
“Banks are always looking to volunteer. ‘Hey, want to come out and paint a fence? Want to come out and do a garden?'” Wright said. “No. Come out here and help Keshia with bookkeeping. Come out here and do QuickBooks classes for folks. Bring out tax experts. Because these are things that befuddle a lot of small businesses. Who is your marketing person? Bring that person out here. Because those are the things that are going to build the business to self-sufficiency.
“Anything short of the capacity-building … that will allow folks to rise to the occasion and be self-sufficient I think is almost a waste,” Wright added. “We don’t need them to lead the plan. What we need them to do is be in the community and [be] hearing the plan and supporting it.”
Parker, of Open Buffalo, has similar thoughts about the role that banks should play. One day, soon after the massacre, an ATM appeared down the street from Tops, next to the library that sits across the street from Parker’s office. Soon after the ATM was installed, Parker began fielding questions from area residents who were skeptical of the machine and wanted to know if it was legitimate. But Parker didn’t have any information to share with them. “There was no outreach. There was no community engagement. So I’m like, ‘Let me investigate,'” she said. “I think that’s a symptom of how investment is done in Black communities, even though it may be well-intentioned.”
As it turns out, the temporary ATM belonged to JPMorgan Chase. The megabank has had a commercial banking presence in Buffalo for years, but it didn’t operate a retail branch in the region until last year. Today it has four branches in operation and plans to open another two by the end of the year, a spokesperson said.
After the Tops shooting, the governor’s office reached out to Chase asking if the bank could help in some way, the spokesperson said in response to the skepticism. The spokesperson said that while the Chase retail brand is new to the Buffalo region, the company has been active in the market for decades by way of commercial banking, private banking, credit card lending, home lending and other businesses.
In addition to the ATM, the bank provided funding to local organizations including FeedMore Western New York, which distributes food throughout the region.
“We are committed to continuing our support for Buffalo and helping the community increase access to opportunities that build wealth and economic empowerment,” the spokesperson said in an email.
In the year since the massacre, there has been some progress by banks in terms of their interest in listening to the East Side community and learning about its needs, said Nicholas. But he hasn’t felt an air of urgency from the banking community to tackle the issues right now.
“I do experience banks being a little more open to figuring out what their role is, but it’s slow. It’s slow,” said Nicholas. The senior pastor of the Lincoln Memorial United Methodist Church, located about a mile north from Tops, Nicholas is part of a 13-member local advisory committee for the New York arm of Local Initiatives Support Coalition, or LISC. The group is focused on mobilizing resources, including banks, to address affordable housing in Western New York, specifically in the inner city, as well as training minority developers and connecting them to potential investors, Nicholas said.
Of the 13 members, seven are from banks — one each from M&T, Bank of America, BankOnBuffalo, Evans and KeyBank, and two members from Citizens Financial Group. One of the priorities of LISC NY is health equity, and the fact that banks are becoming more engaged in looking at health disparities is promising, Nicholas said. Still, they have more work to do, he said.
“I need them to think more on how to strengthen and build the economy on the East Side and provide leadership around that, not only to provide charitable things, but using sound business and banking and community development principles to say, ‘OK, if we’re going to invest in this community, these are the types of things that need to happen in this community,’ and then encourage their partners and other people they work with … to come fully in on the East Side.”
Some bankers agree with the community activists.
“Putting a branch in is great. Having a bank on wheels is great,” said Noah of BankOnBuffalo. “But if you’re not embedded in the community, listening to the community and trying to improve it, you’re not creating that wealth and creating a better lifestyle for everyone.”
What could make a substantial difference in terms of banks’ impact on the community is a combination of collaboration and leadership, said Taylor. He supports the idea of banks leading the charge on the creation of a comprehensive redevelopment and reinvestment plan for the East Side, and then investing accordingly and collaboratively through their charitable foundations.
“All of them have these foundations,” Taylor said. “You can either spend that money in a strategic and intentional way designed to develop a community for the existing population, or you can spend that money alone in piecemeal, siloed, sectorial fashion that will look good on an annual report, but won’t generate transformational and generational changes inside a community.”
Banks might be incentivized to work together because it could mean two things for them, according to Taylor: First, they’d have an opportunity to spend money in a way that would have maximum impact on the East Side, and second, if done right, the city and the banks could become a model of the way to create high levels of diversity, equity and inclusion in an urban area.
“If you prove how to do that, all that does is open up other markets of consumption all over the country because people want to figure out how to do that same thing,” Taylor said.
Some of that is already happening, at least on a bank-by-bank case, said KeyBank’s Owunwanne. Through the KeyBank Foundation, the company is able to leverage different relationships that connect nonprofits to other entities and corporations that can provide help.
“I see this as an opportunity for us to make not just incremental changes, but monumental changes … as part of a larger group,” Owunwanne said “Again, I say that not to absolve the bank of any responsibility, but just as a larger group.”
Downstairs from Parker’s office, Golden Cup Coffee, a roastery and cafe run by a husband and wife team, and some other Jefferson Avenue businesses are trying to build up a business association for existing and potential Jefferson-area businesses. Parker imagined what the group could accomplish if one of the banks could provide someone on a part-time basis to facilitate conversations, provide administrative support and coordinate marketing efforts.
“In the grand scheme of things, when we’re talking about a multimillion dollar [bank], a part-time employee specifically dedicated to relationship-building and building out coalitions, it sounds like a small thing,” Parker said. “But that’s transformational.”
While enjoying my daily scroll, I encountered a question, “What conspiracy theory do you secretly believe but would never admit to your family or friends?” Here are the top-voted responses. To clarify, these are not documented facts but exciting reads.
1. Smartphones Are Always Listening and Watching
“My Smartphone watches and listens to me more than just ‘How would you rate your experience at The Cheesecake Factory?’ When it was off and in my pocket the entire meal,” said one. “I secretly believe it’s always on, always listening, and with constant monitoring.”
“As a related side note, I welcome the emergent AI Overseer that will be revealed in 10 years. My conscience is clear. I also love how the word conscience is a contraction of conscience.” Finally, another joked, “My phone listens to me better than my husband!”
2. Social Engineering Is Real
“That from television to the music industry, we are constantly socially engineered by the content we consume,” one person volunteered. “It’s called social conditioning. Read Musical Truths by Mark Devlin. That exposes the musical side of it.”
3. Aliens Are Real
“Aliens are real. I’m 100 percent certain some life exists in the universe, given the unfathomable size of it all. And I’m nearly 100 percent sure intelligent life exists. Whether they are within our range and live simultaneously is questionable.”
“But I will say there’s a non-zero chance the government knows something,” one responded. Another quoted, “Arthur C. Clarke. Two possibilities exist: either we are alone in the Universe, or we are not. Both are equally terrifying.”
4. Keeping College Unaffordable for Military Recruitment in America
“That America keeps college unaffordable to recruit people into the military. Or if not actively keeping it high priced, doing nothing to keep the prices down.”
“For example, if college became affordable, like in a modern-day European country, the army would lose more than half its soldiers,” someone replied. “One of the primary opponents of Biden’s loan forgiveness plan WAS the U.S. military for this exact reason, right?”
5. Big Salmonella in Collusion With Big Lettuce
“They report a salmonella or E-coli outbreak in romaine lettuce every time they have an abundance of iceberg lettuce and not enough romaine to get people to buy the other kind,” someone shared. Another joked, “Big Farma.”
6. Very Wealthy People Are Psychopaths
“Those VERY wealthy people, particularly politicians, are psychopaths that do terrible things that would send chills down your spine, for fun,” one answered.
“Having gross amounts of money and power gets boring eventually. And people that relentlessly pursue obscene wealth and power already exhibit psychopathic tendencies. Power corrupts. There are some Harvey Weinstein, and Jeffrey Epstein types out worldwide.”
7. Fishy News
“I think it’s fishy beyond belief that after the Occupy Wall Street movement, there was a MASSIVE increase in reports on gender vs. gender and race vs. race issues in all vital newspapers. It’s VERY convenient for the 1% that the plebs are fighting themselves instead.”
“I don’t think there are no issues with racism or sexism. It’s good that we’re talking about it. But it appears that the most significant media outlets don’t want us to talk about it. Instead, they want us to fight each other.”
8. Mark Zuckerberg Is Playing The Long Game
One person replied, “Mark Zuckerberg knows what he is doing and is playing a very long game. I think Meta and the Metaverse seem like such a detached conceit because he isn’t catering to the older generations with this shot anymore.”
“The Metaverse is for the six-year-olds with tablets right now. Mark wants them to grow up in his universe. They are the demographic that cares about graphics right now. But they will as they age, and Meta’s goal is probably to keep up with that. Create a whole generation wholly consumed in it.”
“It is a better bet than trying to cater to the older cynical people who have grown up with internet/Facebook 1.0 and can’t ever get an engrained feel for the next-gen form of connectedness.”
9. Celebrity Kid Names
Someone volunteered, “Celebrities name their kids’ crazy things, so they don’t release their real names to the public and paparazzi.” Someone added, “God, I hope that one is true.”
10. The Car Companies Colluded
“Car companies colluded to discontinue their small and affordable cars in America. It happened *very* rapidly, within a two-to-three-year span. Except for Mitsubishi,” someone said. Another shared, “I worked for one of the big three in the ’90s and ’00s.”
“They were constantly looking for ways to make small passenger cars profitable. It was part of my job. But the company I worked for couldn’t profit from small cars. But they made bank on trucks and SUVs. But I can tell you we lost money on most small cars.”
“So we kept assuming small cars were like a gateway for larger, profitable vehicles. But eventually, that made less and less marketing sense. If you don’t believe me, this was written about extensively in the automotive press in the early 00s.”
Source: Reddit.
Who is one actress you can never stand watching, no matter their role? After polling the internet, these were the top-voted actresses that people couldn’t stand watching.
10 Actresses People Despise Watching Regardless of Their Role
These 7 Celebrities are Genuinely Good People
We’ve all heard the famous adage that “no publicity is bad publicity,” and while it tends to be accurate, there are certainly exceptions. But what about those few stars who stay out of the limelight and get along without a hint of trouble?
These 7 Celebrities are Genuinely Good People
Have you ever known someone and thought you liked them—until you learned about their hobbies? Then you get to know them and then you’re like, “Wow, red flag.” Well, you’re not alone.
These 10 Activities Are an Immediate Red Flag
Some celebrities definitely seem to enjoy the limelight and keep working to stay in the public eye. While others quickly move out of the spotlight. Many of these actors and actresses stepped out of the spotlight to live a more private life without constant media pressures.
10 Celebrities That Made the Big Times Then Disappeared Off The Face of the Earth
We’ve all been there – sitting through a movie that we can’t help but cringe at, but somehow it still manages to hold a special place in our hearts.
These 10 Terrible Movies Are Still People’s Favorites
Today’s RealTrending features Rich Hopen, broker-associate of Compass and co-founder of REAL-E in New Jersey and Susan Vanech, broker-associate of Compass and founder of Compass Coastal in Connecticut. Hopen is a self-taught expert in all things ChatGPT and artificial intelligence and built an AI-powered listing chatbot. Vaneck used that chatbot to market a multi-million dollar property.
Today, they discuss the power of AI in real estate marketing, what the future holds, how they are embracing AI in their businesses and what trends they are seeing. Hopen is the editor of the e-newsletter: The AI Daily Brief where he discusses the latest trends in AI and how to apply them.
Here is a small preview of today’s interview with Susan and Rich. The transcript below has been lightly edited for length and clarity:
Tracey Velt: There’s a lot of controversy there over ChatGPT. You’ve heard Elon Musk talk about the necessity to have some controls on it before it’s too late. So talk to me a little bit about that and the possibilities for AI in real estate
Rich Hopen: It’s hard to look at the news and not see someone take a position on AI. It basically ranges from this advanced technology that’s going to solve huge macro issues, and then the other end of the spectrum is that we shouldn’t unleash this thing. It’s going to destroy the human race. But one thing that everyone agrees with is that it’s a very advanced and powerful technology. It’s hard for me to really come up with any industry that’s not going to be impacted in a major way. You have a small percentage of agents that are leaning into this tech. They’re using it to generate content. And then you have a really small percentage of agents like Susan, that are getting way ahead of that and asking where it’s going. There’s all these applications, and that really involves building and having a custom Chatbot.
Susan Vanech: I want to create the content to educate the butler. So, kind of leapfrogging over what’s more exposed to the typical agent through ChatGPT. Using the AI Butler, doing exactly what Richard just said, which is adding another layer of service to that end user, and giving them the ability to engage and participate in a more human way, even though it’s through the use of this artificial intelligence. It’s about merging and bridging what we each as humans have contained within us, but having this bot that’s able to communicate on our behalf.
The RealTrending podcast features the brightest minds in real estate. Every week, brokerage leaders, top agents, team leaders, and industry experts share their success secrets, trends, and lessons learned navigating this ever-changing industry. Hosted by Tracey Velt and produced by Elissa Branch.