image courtesy yan zabolotnyi / dreamstime
Before 1900, women in all states of this country did not have the right to retain their wages or own property. Before 1974 — the year my mother turned 21 — women could not apply for consumer credit. In 2022, the gender wage gap remained chasmic, with women earning 82 cents for every dollar earned by men; in the 20 years since 2002, the wage gap narrowed by only 2 cents.
These figures, and the history they represent, have been on my mind as we’ve been preparing the several stories in this issue concerning real estate. It’s a curious term, “real estate,” seeming to imply the existence of a more elusive property type: “fake estate” (and thus the existence of fake estate agents, fake estate attorneys, and so on). In fact, the “real” in “real estate” denotes the place-permanence of the “estate,” meaning something like “status” or “stake” (not an estate as in, say, the country estate of a member of the landed gentry). Meanwhile, the word “realtor” (or, depending upon whom you ask, Realtor®.
Regardless of the terms, most of us share a desire to carve out our own little plot of earth where we might create a life that feels like ours and ours alone. Where we can pursue our quirky projects, where we can check our public personae at the door, where we can simply be, and be safe.
That desire has become harder to achieve for many in my generation (elder millennial) and younger, as we contend with ballooning student debt, wage stagnation, and a general sense of precarity, unsteadiness. After I left my parents’ home for college, in 2002, I would not live in a single-family home again for 17 years, when my spouse and I bought our current home. In my 40 years, I have lived in two houses with mortgages, two dorm rooms, and eight apartments. No one should be this good at packing, unless they run a moving company.
All of which is to say, the condition of homeownership continues to feel, to me, not like a given but like a surprising fluke, a roll of the dice. I’m not alone in that feeling, especially in Memphis, where a higher-than-average share of residents are renters — and where lots of folks are struggling in even bigger way.
image courtesy yan zabolotnyi / dreamstime
Our cover story this month introduces several local organizations who are working to help those facing housing insecurity. We focus on three groups in particular whose solutions to this very large problem are, paradoxically, very small: tiny houses. For some Memphians, newly built, extremely compact homes are providing the foundations to more stable lives. These groups are working especially to serve marginalized people who would otherwise have a harder time accessing safe, affordable housing. By helping them over the threshold, the organizers are opening the doors to much more than just new domiciles.
We also offer an update on the not-so-tiny residential real estate market, which the experts we interviewed indicate is relatively resilient. I was especially intrigued to read that the Memphis market is on better footing for not having experienced a major price surge in recent years — the higher you fly, et cetera.
It feels fitting that the two stories would be told alongside one another. In Memphis, neighborhoods of quiet privilege sit right beside areas that have fallen on hard times. When we first conceived of these two stories sharing space in one issue, we wondered how they would resonate against one another. Now, the juxtaposition feels perfectly Memphis: struggle and solution, privilege and potential, all coexisting — as neighbors do.
We all deserve a place to call home, whether we’re rich or poor, men or women, and whether “home” consists of 400 or 4,000 square feet. No matter where you might be on your own journey homeward, I hope you find some information here that helps you find the way.
