Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
I didn’t lack historical context in my point, I just didn’t eleborate on why we had those values. What you said is true, however, the problem I’m speaking about is happening now in 2019. It’s crazy that black people don’t realize value is not in size, but location in 2019. We are leaving the places where the money is going. Makes no sense at all. We buy expensive clothes and cars for the quality, yet we don’t buy homes for quality based on where they are located. We leave cities that will always have investment and be expensive moving south to cheaper cities that aren’t gateway cities. I have friends in Atlanta with houses still worth only half of what they paid for them.
Well there are all sorts of reasons Blacks leave the urban cores of rapidly gentrifying Northern cities, and they don't always leave for the suburbs of Southern cities; seems like half the time, they head straight for suburbia in the region where they already reside, and predominantly Black suburban neighborhoods across the country have had issues with recovering home values. That's definitely not an Atlanta- or Southern-specific issue.
This is incorrect. It is based on cultural differences regarding value. Black people in general place more value on space (more house for your money) while white people generally place more value on location and amenities when talking about city living.
This is why white people will pay to live in a small studio or 1-bedroom apartment right in the center of everything above a trendy coffee shop or restaurant for the same amount of money that it would cost them to live in a large 3-bedroom home in the suburbs. Black people, on the other hand, would generally rather live in the 3-bedroom home than pay the same amount for a studio in a trendy neighborhood.
That is why black people are moving away from inner city neighborhoods. It's not that they can't afford to live there. They don't think it's worth paying that much money to live there when they could get more for their money.
Personally, I think its sad because black people always seem to be a day late and a dollar short. We owned all these homes in the cities across the nation and then developers came in offering us cash for our homes and we sold instead of keeping our homes. Now, many people have moved to the suburbs and bought large houses that won't be worth anything in the future as they age while homes in the city will continue to skyrocket in value as everyone now wants to get back into the city.
Quote:
Originally Posted by gibbsnm
I think you way over-simplified why so many Black people in various cities sold their homes to developers. Some may have sold just to cash out and get a bigger home in the suburbs, but I assure you many indeed could no longer afford to live in their homes. Plenty held out as long as they could, but some folks couldn't afford to pay the skyrocketing property taxes on their homes as their property increased in value due to new development and gentrification. I'm specifically thinking of older people, many who were retired and on fixed incomes, who had lived in their homes for decades. Those folks didn't just cash out and uproot their lives because they saw dollar signs and had dreams of living in a big house in the suburbs. Saying that Black people always seem to be a day late and a dollar short is a rather myopic view of a much more complicated and nuanced issue.
+1 gibbsnm;
@mdallstar: black persons arent a monolith. my parents/uncles/aunts/several of their friends/... didnt move to their section of boston because they valued space. language and access to markets were the biggest concerns. even quality schools wasnt a big concern because even a failing school system is a step up from no public school option in haiti. and not having access to cars meant suburban living would be tough. its really only this decade where black persons are complaining the gentrifiers are starting to push them to the suburbs.
ayanna pressley won the 7th based on that campaign premise (linda florry previously on the state sanate also addresses these concerns).
Well there are all sorts of reasons Blacks leave the urban cores of rapidly gentrifying Northern cities, and they don't always leave for the suburbs of Southern cities; seems like half the time, they head straight for suburbia in the region where they already reside, and predominantly Black suburban neighborhoods across the country have had issues with recovering home values. That's definitely not an Atlanta- or Southern-specific issue.
Agreed, but my point is supported by what you're saying. They leave the city proper of cities in the northeast for their suburbs in search of more space for less money. It's the same reason we move south. We tend to want the most for the least. That's actually why our home values in black neighborhoods in the suburbs suffer. For homes values to rebound, consumers have to be willing to pay over asking price. The bidding wars drive up costs and protect home values. Home value is based on comparable housing transactions (comps). If someone pays $20,000 over asking price, everyone in that neighborhood just received a bump in value. Alternatively, if someone sells their house for under asking price or is foreclosed on, everyone takes a hit in value.
How does a neighborhood avoid foreclosure? Be a hot neighborhood with very high demand. The bidding wars seen in NYC, D.C., San Fran, and Boston proper drive up the cost of housing. The "get the most for the least" mentality hurts that process. That's why black neighborhoods don't rebound as fast unless people "willing to pay more for less" are buying homes there. Southern cities are seeing bidding wars too now and many black families are moving out to the suburbs. It seems we were so eager to get to the suburbs in the past when white flight happened that we haven't realized white people are currently headed back into the city now that we have the chance to go get our "Leave it to Beaver" lifestyle with the picket fence and dog. I wish we would follow the money. The suburban push is over. In the future, money will be in the city and the lower income areas will be in the suburbs. It's already started actually.
The reason home values in black neighborhoods is less is due to race. Plenty of evidence about that.
Are home values under valued in black neighborhoods? Yes. The issue I'm speaking about is our cultural difference of not wanting to pay more than something is worth. We go under contract for a home and get our appraisal done. The home comes in less than what we went under contract for. Unlike our white counterparts, we generally aren't willing to pay the difference in cost. Or to put it in different context, we didn't purchase a smaller home that cost less so we would have more money to cover the difference. We only want to pay what the house is worth generally.
We also need to ditch this "all the White people have abandoned suburbia and returned to the core city" myth. While it's true that several cities across the country are witnessing resurging core populations, it's often (though not exclusively) due to younger, unmarried, college-educated White professionals and smaller slivers of DINKs and retirees. Families with school-age children have pretty much been staying put in the suburbs, and urban-dwelling millennials tend to follow suit when they start families.
The suburbs are definitely transforming and evolving, but they aren't completely disappearing.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
