“Built Different:” Self-Improvement, Financial Freedom, and the Logics of Landlords

Keywords: housing, landlords, rental real estate market
Session Type: Virtual Paper Abstract
Day: Sunday
Session Start / End Time: 2/27/2022 11:20 AM (Eastern Time (US & Canada)) - 2/27/2022 12:40 PM (Eastern Time (US & Canada))
Room: Virtual 74

Abstract

Much impressive work exists to make sense of the ever-shifting contours of the residential real estate market. Despite this work, there is room for more critical analysis of the specific ideologies underpinning small landlords, who still own more than half of the rental units in the US. In the 15 years since the financial crash, a thriving market of self-help real estate investing content has developed. Through websites, blogs, online forums, workshops and trainings, this industry uses the lure of financial freedom and self-sufficiency to entice amateurs into becoming landlords. In this paper, I use content analysis of forums combined with interviews with current and former landlords to analyze the ideologies and practices of small real estate investors. I investigate two specific categories of landlord ideology: 1- reasons behind aspiring to real estate investment and 2- logics underpinning the day-to-day work of managing property, from finding properties to financing repairs and screening tenants. In the first category, I find familiar neoliberal themes of entrepreneurship and self-promotion, wedded at times uncomfortably with efforts to finance early retirements and escape traditional employment. In the second category, I find that landlords specialize in types of properties based on area and type of renter, which are defined through barely covert ideologies of racism and classism. By looking closely at the reasons underpinning investment decisions, I argue that the decisions of small landlords deserve more attention and have an outsized impact on rental markets throughout the US.