Seb Choe: 9 Real Estate Activists

illustrations by @ieatdrywall

Seb Choe (IG)
Illustrations by ieatdrywall

Why is the Rent Too Damn High? In the United States, the "housing crisis" is the new normal. Like a stock, housing has become a speculative asset that investors hoard, trade, and cash-in for profit. Our economy is dependent on the myth that housing (and rent) must always rise. The bailouts of 2008 demonstrated to what lengths our government will go when this myth is challenged. The mask of neoliberalism came off: rather than a free market and government in conflict, their shared interest was revealed - seeing housing value rise, regardless of reality.

While most reeled from the crash, institutional investors seized an opportunity, realizing they could now out-bid private home buyers, oftentimes with cash. Invitation Homes is now the largest private landlord in the country with 80,000 rental properties in its portfolio. But wait, there's more! "Landchads" boast on Reddit about landowner supremacy and evicting "rentoids". For every unhoused person in New York City, there are three vacant units. NIMBYism (Not In My Backyard) prolongs a massive housing shortage, and the new units that are built, attract gentrifiers (who displace locals) and investors (who leave the units vacant). Planning ordinances like "inclusionary zoning" generate too-little "affordable housing" with years-long wait lists and ironically exclusionary income requirements. Developers receive subsidies and zoning exceptions, despite the fact that many of these affordable units evaporate into market-rate in as soon as 15 years. The legacy of slavery, redlining and predatory inclusion lives on in nefarious forms that maintain oppressive systems like white supremacy. The pandemic poured gasoline on the fire.

Who will save us when the State and the Market have failed to provide us adequate housing? In the words of activist Grace Lee Boggs, "We are the leaders we've been waiting for." What will be your role to play in the housing justice movement, as you join others in amplifying diverse approaches and forming a critical mass? Born too late to own property, born just in time to be a real estate activist. Choose your fighter, mix and match!

1. Adrienne Buller and Mathew Lawrence, "Owning the Future: Power and Property in an Age of Crisis", A Crisis of Balance Sheets", Ch. 2: The Primacy of Property. Verso, 2022.

2. Ryan Dezember, "If You Sell a House These Days, the Buyer Might Be a Pension Fund", Wall Street Journal. April 4, 2021. 1

3. Invitation Homes, "Our Story"

4. Jon Greenberg, Politifact, "Ocasio-Cortez: In New York City, there are 3 vacant apartments for each homeless person"

5. National Association of Home Builders. 2020. "Housing Market Index: Special Questions." Accessed March 6, 2023. 

6. U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development's (HUD's) Office of Policy Development and Research (PD&R), "What Happens to LIHTC Properties After Affordability Requirements Expire?"

7. Grace Lee Boggs, Interview with Bill Moyers, www.pbs.org. June 15, 2007.