Real Estate Gentrification

Within the current real estate market, we are experiencing both all-time highs and all-time lows for many different reasons. While the price of your typical neighborhood home soars to new heights, so does the cost of living within that very same area. This issue is resulting in the displacement of many people from neighborhoods that they once called home. And you may think that this may be only affecting some, but this is not the case at all. Currently, Philadelphia is experiencing mass evictions across the city. People are literally becoming homeless off this one issue: gentrification. The interesting thing about gentrification is that there is really no way to prevent it from happening. Most of the time, gentrification occurs before people can even realize that it is happening. Yet, they all begin the same way: they begin with mass development. Mass development in an area typically leads to a direct increase in the median home value within that very area. Then after a short period of time, your neighborhood begins to look a little like this:

A beautiful modern home gets thrown up next to you and before you know it: home price increases, rent price becomes unaffordable, and you get the boot. Yet, what is truly terrible about this is that mass development and flip projects are some of the best ways to make money within the current market.

What is sad about this whole process is that there is nothing that we can realistically do to protect these people from displacement. The only simple solution would be for a local government to step in and set rent ceilings for certain areas; however, that would just result in a butterfly effect of current and future issues arising. Overall, there is no real answer or solution as to what needs to be done, but the one thing that we can do is recognize the negative effects of this process.