Viral TikToks on Housing Affordability Put Wall Street On Blast

This post was originally published on Word In Black By:  Joseph Williams No question about it — the rent, and the mortgage for that matter, is too damn high. Spend just five minutes on TikTok, and you’ll come across videos like these, racking up tens of thousands of likes and shares. The situation is even worse if you’re Black. Studies show that roughly half of all Black households spend at least 30% of their monthly income on rent, and nearly a third spend 50% or more. The situation isn’t much better for prospective Black homeowners, where data show average home prices are drifting out of reach of median household income. While persistent problems, like inflation, wealth inequality, and the Black-white pay gap are partly to blame, researchers and policymakers studying the housing affordability crisis have identified a powerful new villain: Wall Street. Experts say giant investment firms with billions of dollars at their disposal are sweeping through the nation’s housing market, buying up single-family homes and housing units with cash. Having outbid individual buyers, the firms turn the properties into market-rate rental homes — driving up overall housing costs and shoving first-time homeowners to the sidelines. If the problem is...