The Culture of Amateur Real Estate Investing
The majority of rental properties in the U.S. today is owned by small- to medium-sized investors, many of whom enter the trade with little prior experience. This paper considers the cultural factors that motivate these amateurs to purchase real estate–an investment with high risks and relatively poor returns. Drawing on in-depth interviews with 93 investors in three heterogeneous real estate markets, Baltimore, MD, Dallas, TX, and Cleveland, OH, combined with participant observation of 22 real estate investment association meetings (REIAs), this paper finds that amateurs who decide to become investors often do so during periods when their professional identities are insecure or they perceive their retirement portfolios to be insufficient. Through participation in real estate investment associations and other investor networks, they quickly internalize “investor culture,” embracing ideologies of self-sufficiency and risk. “Investor culture”—perpetuated by REIAs--motivates and legitimizes strategies of action that lead to increasingly leveraged investments. Third-party actors, including real estate gurus, paid mentors, and private “hard money” lenders exploit the intersection of insecurity and the propagation of investor culture to profit off amateurs’ investment decisions.