Journey to RehabLand

For this blog to make sense, it will be helpful for me to give you some context for how I arrived here.

When I was eight years old (I promise this will be short), I asked my mom what a Negro was. Instead of just directing me to the closest mirror, she introduced me to literature on the struggle for equality for black people in America from the moment of our arrival through the aftermath of the civil rights movement. I fell hard for social justice. I was particularly drawn to rectifying residential segregation. I wanted to be a crusading fighter. I could see myself on courthouse steps marching toward freedom. It just felt right. So I went to law school. There, I picked up a curious interest in real estate law, instead of civil procedure. I thought real estate would allow me to do well and do good by addressing residential segregation and the poor, underserved neighborhoods that residential segregation created. But, I hated the practice of law. Oh, I really hated it. During a summer internship, I was lured by the promise of a luxurious life and big money. I didn’t like the practice of law, so I figured if I had to do it, I wanted to be well-paid. Besides, I thought, I was going to practice real estate at the firm. They would train me so that I could soon leave to start my own affordable real estate development company. Another summer associate and I sketched out business plans and I read real estate development textbooks during the summers so that I could get a basic understanding of the industry.

When I arrived at the law firm as an employee instead of an intern it was, to put things mildly, not to my liking. I endured for a while, aided by great family and friends, the power of New York City and a very comfortable salary.

In 2006, I found myself in a new city looking for a job in the industry I wanted to join when I left law school three years prior – affordable housing. I soon found a position at one of the city’s best-known affordable housing non-profit companies. Two years later, and one year into a recession that has hurt the entire economy but devastated the local housing industry, I am starting on a project that I had planned to start on my own five years ago: I am, on behalf of my employer, locating troubled houses, acquiring them, rehabbing them and selling them to middle to lower income households. And I am horrified.

By horrified, I don’t mean that I am against the plan; I think the plan is great. But I have never done anything like this before. I am a first time homeowner myself; I have no experience in buying houses, working with contractors and selling the finished product. So, I have started this blog to chart my journey into RehabLand.

Because I work for a non-profit, I am expecting that this experience will be different from most home rehabbers. My company is interested not rehabbing homes to flip for the highest price. We follow our mission of increasing housing choice for families at all income levels and we expect that dollars will follow. As a result, we are working with housing counselors and churches, neighborhood associations and nearby employers, to find people who are interested in buying enough house to be safe, comfortable and build equity, but not so much house that they end up as casualties of the foreclosure crisis. We are seeking to make affordable housing decent housing. My boss is sternly against the shoddy fixtures many for-profit developers throw in their homes for people in the middle- and low-income ranges. “Why do they have to use the same old tired brass fixtures?” she asks me, “Can’t they shop around? I know IKEA must have something interesting and appealing for the same price or less.” So I guess I’ll be going to IKEA. I’ll let you know what I find.

Tomorrow (or later on today) I go to meet my first clients. They represent a foundation based in an area where the fall-out from the sub-prime debacle is attempting to ravage the entire neighborhood. Rehab and resale to working class families is the sort of thing I’ve been saying I wanted to do since 2002. I am very excited, but very nervous. I’ll let you know how it goes.