investing in houses

I had a really interesting conversation with someone yesterday about investing in houses.

We were walking down the streets in Columbia Heights, where there are dozens of for sale signs, and were talking about the old group house I used to live in.

The man that owned the house owned several houses in Washington, DC's Northwest quadrant. From 1810, he used to make well over 3 grand a month from the rent. Sheer profit because the homes were paid for. Sheer profit because he inherited the houses and didn't even have to shell out the money to buy them in the first place. I guess his family started buying and investing in homes all over Mt. Pleasant back in the days . . and this guy just inherited them. He probably makes over 10 grand just from renting them out.

When I think about this, it makes me feel a little sick. Maybe it's because I am a bit naive (or that I have too much faith in humanity) . . but I assumed that this kind of profit making on the backs of working class people who can't afford to buy a home themselves and must rent . . would also make others feel sick.

I was little taken aback when my friend told me that it was genius. She felt investing in home is such a smart tactic . . and that she had been thinking about doing it herself. She said that while she would probably never have a job that would allow her to come up with a down payment for a home where she would want to live . . she could probably come up with a down payment for a home in a neighborhood that she could rent out. She would rent out the home in the other neighborhood . . and then when the market goes up, she would sell it and use the profit for the down payment on a home where she would actually want to live.

While I guess she thought this makes absolute sense (and hey, maybe it does), I was taken aback. I think I was taken aback for two reasons.

First, amid the housing crisis . . I wondered by ANYONE would do that. I shared stories of my relatives who purchased a home, then rented it out, then purchased a larger home . . and just lived for free because the rent from one home used to cover the mortage of both homes. She said that was really smart. I said that they were being greedy . . and while they were my family, housing foreclosures were apart of karma.

Second, I was also taken aback because my friend who I was walking with identifies as being liberal and progressive. She even goes as far as to call her self a hippie. How could someone who identifies with being progressive even think about make profit on the backs of working class people who (whether it is because of preference or not) have to rent.

Maybe I'm just making assumptions that most people, if given the opportunity, would buy a house to make their home rather than rent it. Maybe I'm just being naive again or maybe I just don't really understand what this is really about.

After her logic on how to invest in houses, I said, "I don't know if I agree with that," and went on to bring up my perspective. "So, you're saying that you want to make money by renting out a house to people who can't afford houses? Probably a young family that if given the opportunity to buy a house at a good deal . . would probably buy it . . except investors come in first to grab the hot deals and they are forced to just rent because investors want to make a buck?"

Maybe it's just very Buddhist of me . . but I think that if you're not going to live in a house and actually make it your home . . you should probably let someone who does intend to live there and make it their home buy the house themselves. Maybe it's just very Southeast Asian of me because back in Laos and China, you can't just claim land without occupying it and renting it to someone else. If you claim land and leave it vacant, you lose the land to someone who does have some use to it. Maybe it's very indigenous of me to think that land can't be bought, sold, and rented unless you need it or unless you want to cultivate it . . because everyone needs a land . . everyone needs a home and who are you to come in and try to rent land or a home to someone else when you already have adequate space for yourself? Maybe it's very refugee-like or working class of me to think too seriously of homes because my parents bought our five bedroom house in san diego for $110,000 in 1986 . . when they were making $3.25 an hour. Maybe it just freaks me out to think that if people in the mid-80s were going around investing in affordable homes in new and not so nice areas . . my life growing up would have been completely different and my family probably would have been thrown on my streets in highschool.

I've seen entire neighborhoods of newly developed and affordable houses be bought by investors. Temecula, California. My relatives were guilty of such doing. When people who actually want to live there come in, the price has already skyrocketed because of these investors . . and they're forced to rent from the investors who already took the good deals.

My friend went on to talk about her mother. Maybe she sensed that I was feeling really offended and wanted to remind me of her modest upbringing. She talked about how her mother has no savings and is actually in a lot of debt. Investing in a house would not only help her save enough money to buy a home for herself . . but it would also help her help her mom get out of debt.

This comment made me think. How dare she try to bring up the hardships her mom has gone through (and is currently going through) to justify such actions? Maybe her mom is stuggling . . but how does that justify taking advantage of other people who are also probably struggling?

To preface this . . I guess I should share that over my friendship with this person . . she's shared with me a lot of stories about her mother. How she was definitely an unconventional mother who didn't cook and moved around a lot and never really had a stable job. With that in mind, I think this conversation also brought up a lot of personal questions I've had over the years regarding people who are struggling because of institutional injustices . . and people who (dare I say) are struggling because of an inability to get their shit together.

I guess that makes me sound very conservative. Or at least it sounds like something my brother or sister would say about those on unemployment, youth who are at risk, or folks who need help through governmental assistance programs.

Maybe it's my own pull your self up by your bootstraps mentality after seeing my parents, who barely speak english and have never made more than $10 an hour -- raise three children who went to college.

Maybe I am moderate in some ways. Or maybe I am conservative in other ways. However, how could someone who claims to be progressive and wants to study urban planning feel good about making a profit in this manner?

How can someone who says she values "community" think it's a good idea to invest in houses by buying them then renting them out?

When we got to our destination, I guess it was obvious I was a little sick and I didn't want to talk about it anymore. I guess this was somewhat of a reality check. Welcome to Washington, DC . . the land of single issues and where progressive in one issue . . doesn't necessarily mean progressive on all issues.

washington dc's quadrants

today i went on a wild adventure to seek my reproductive rights.

ha.  okay, i'm being dramatic.  i just went on a mission to washington dc's planned parenthood in northeast.

so i guess this story starts off before today.  it starts off two weeks ago when i made my women's annual appointment.  she had a 6 to 8 week waiting period . . which meant i wouldn't be able to get my new prescription for birth control until then.  that poses a problem . . seeing that i dont just take the little suckers for "fun."

i called planned parenthood in northeast (which is like a few blocks from work) but of course, they wouldn't be able to see me until the end of december.  that would be too late.

so i called planned parenthood in northeast.  i thought, hey can't be that bad.  i've been to northeast to grab furniture.  it's metro/bus accessible.  worst comes to worst, i get to see more of the district.

&& seeing the district is what i did.

my adventure today not only helped me claim my reproductive rights as a womyn . . but it also confirmed my thoughts on dc's deep segregation issues.  

as i rode the 68 bus from my house south towards downtown . . most of my fellow passengers were blacks and latinos.  as i got closer to the "newly revitalized" u street corridor . . most of my fellow passengers got lighter.  all of these passengers got off somewhere between  dupont and gallery place.  very typical.

then i hopped onto bus to head east.  next thing you know, i was the only non-african american on the bus.  i felt like i was on a bus heading to work at banteay srei again . . and that really comforted me.

maybe it's because sarah jo keeps makign comments about how many abandoned houses are in our neighborhood.  or that women keep talking about not walking around late at night . . but i've been feeling TOO comfortable in dc lately.  or that i've come to live amongst people who just really LIKE being TOO comfortable.  maybe too comfortable is good.  too comfortable could also be too safe.  could also be too happy.

i guess i should recognize my privilege in being able to ride buses all around town, feel safe in my own home, etc . . but i dont know if i want to wake up one day feeling overly sensitive about my surroundings . . or feeling less grounded in the "real" world.

"Progress"

"I hope that one day the minority will be in power and not do what they were taught to do."

today i was waiting for the bus with one of my new friends and we had an interesting conversation.

we were talking about progress in the southeast asian community.

the conversation started because she's cambodian and she grew up in minnesota.  i asked how it was like growing up there and how the cambodian community was out there.  she mentioned that it got dramatically larger and i asked where were most folks coming from.

she said california.

as someone who grew up in california and experienced many people who were forced to leave because of dwindling opportunities, i said, yeah.  that does happen.  especially after companies close and folks realize california is just so expensive.

however, she expressed that while that may be the case, she thought it was better.  she felt that it was good that people could actually move and that when they did move, it allowed they to progress.  

she thought that while having big communities in one place was good in some ways . . she thought that sometimes communities also hold people down or back.  she cited lowell . . where cambodian folks stayed even though staying meant they stayed poor.

i responded that i guess it depended on what you meant by progress.

she defined progress as job opportunities, educational attainment, independence from social welfare programs . .

at that point, i realized that we looked at progress and community development from different perspectives.  all the things she listed . . i felt were things that her american teachers taught her meant progress.  all the things that she mentioned was progress . . were all western definitions of progress.

maybe i'm a bit biased . . but to me . . progress is the low-income communities i grew up in.  where we used to be able to fill up an entire temple with just tai lue folks.  where our samakom threw huge new years parties.  where my mother used to dress up for new years and dance with dozens of other mothers.  where my dad had friends and family to watch football with on sunday afternoons.  where i had a cousin living on every block within a ten block radius . .

thats how i remember growing up poor was like.

now, according to her standards . . i guess we've progressed.  my parents own a home.  malisa, james, and i all graduated from universities.  i make probably twice as much money an hour than my mom and dad would ever make.  my rent is more than the mortgage my parents paid for our entire house.  i shop for groceries at whole foods.  

but then again . . my grandma goes to temple with about a handful of other older women.  san diego's lue samakom doesn't have new years parties anymore . . heck, we barely have a board of directors.  my mom no longer has girlfriends to dance with . . much less stay on her feet for longer than 30 minutes at a time.  my dad eats all his meals alone.  and the kids i grew up are spread out into 4 other states.

i guess we're progressed.

but heck, if this is "progress" . . it sure is lonely.