• For a decade, Canada has been the largest foreign investor in US commercial real estate.
• The billions of dollars that flow into the US from its northern neighbor could now be in jeopardy.
• The rift comes as President Trump has threatened tariffs on Canada and mused of annexing it.

President Donald Trump upended relations with one of the country's closest allies and trading partners when he suggested that the US should annex Canada and threatened punishing tariffs on certain Canadian imports.

The fraying relations between the two nations could also disrupt one of the biggest pipelines of money into US commercial real estate.

Since 2015, Canadian investors have acquired roughly $184 billion of US multifamily apartments, office buildings, retail spaces, industrial warehouses, and other commercial property assets, according to data from MSCI. That's more than any other foreign investor.

There are now worries that Canadian buyers, which include some of the world's wealthiest pension funds, might slow or even postpone US real estate dealmaking.

"There are clients who are Canadian clients who are very upset and their first reaction is if the US can do this to a friend, then we're not going to invest," said Mark Rose, the CEO of Avison Young, a commercial real estate services firm that has its headquarters in Toronto. "I don't think that Canadian investors are running to close deals in the US today."

Gunnar Branson, the CEO of the Association of Foreign Investors in Real Estate, a trade association based in Alexandria, Virginia, that represents foreign buyers, said that during a February conference for the group, he had "never seen so many angry Canadians before."

"If you're a cross-border investor, the US has been a lower political risk jurisdiction," Branson said. "Risk managers are looking and saying: We need to assess that."

Branson said that foreign investment had been broadly diminished in recent past years by a sluggish sales market caused by higher interest rates and uncertain values. The outlook, however, had brightened in recent months, as expectations grew that interest rates would fall and deal activity would accelerate, allowing foreign buyers to reboot US acquisitions.

Foreign investment had already begun to pick up, according to the real estate services company CBRE, which reported that international buyers invested $37 billion during the second half of 2024, a 31% increase from the same period a year before.

Canada led all foreign investment with roughly $4 billion of deals in the second half of the year, according to CBRE, more than double the next closest country, the UK, which purchased $1.62 billion of property assets in the US.

That rebound could now be in jeopardy.

"There is certainly a pause going on," Branson said, referring to both Canadian and foreign investment at large.

CBRE predicted that foreign investment in US property would grow 8% in 2025, but cautioned that "downside risks remain, particularly due to elevated long-term bond yields, potential tariffs and geopolitical uncertainties."

Major Canadian funds could turn elsewhere

Large Canadian pension funds have been major acquirers of trophy US commercial assets. Oxford Properties Group, a subsidiary of the roughly $100 billion Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System, is a partner in Hudson Yards, an ongoing real estate mega-development on Manhattan's West Side that is one of the country's largest private real estate projects.

Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec, a pension manager that oversees about $340 billion, owns several prominent real estate assets, including the Manhattan office tower 3 Bryant Park and a majority stake in 1211 Avenue of the Americas.

The arrival of President Trump and his new administration in January has disrupted the global order for commerce and trade — and potentially also the flow of investment.

In March, the US placed a 25% tariff on Canadian goods and energy outside of what is protected by North American free trade agreements. The move included a 25% tariff on Canadian steel and aluminum.

Aside from the painful duties, Trump has inflamed Canadians with remarks that suggested he thought of the country as little more than a US satellite. In March, Trump said during a White House press conference that "Canada only works as a state" of the US.

In late March, Canada's prime minister, Mark Carney, responded, declaring that Canada "will need to dramatically reduce our reliance on the United States. We will need to pivot our trade relationships elsewhere."

The souring relationship has influenced investor decision making, experts say.

"Does the comments coming out of Washington impact real estate trading? Yes, it does," Rose, the CEO of Avison Young, said.

Rose said that the company's Canadian executives were outraged by Trump's remarks and the US's suddenly aggressive economic posture.

Rose said that he has had to personally navigate the fallout by assuaging Canadian employees and clients who "were offended and wanted to know what were we going to say."

He released a public statement in which he said he was "distressed over the impact of actions and commentary emanating from the U.S. toward its ally and neighbor to the north."

"We are here to support our people in North America, all of our clients in North America, no matter what side you come down on," he wrote.

Europe emerges as an alternative

There are some signs that investors may be shifting their focus away from the US.

David Steinbach, the global chief investment officer of the development and investment firm Hines, said that interest has picked up in European investment funds managed by the company.

He said that Hines has recently had "more conversations about our European funds and investments" with global investors and that the company was looking to raise additional capital for an open-ended fund that invests on the continent.

"We do have an unprecedented amount of dry powder for Europe right now," Steinbach said, noting that he believed at the start of the year that global investors would be overwhelmingly attracted to US property markets.

"This year it's going to be a bit more balanced than I originally thought," Steinbach said, referring to the pickup of interest in European deals.

Aaron Bennett, the chief investment officer of the University Pension Plan, a roughly $8 billion system representing Ontario-area college faculty and employees, said he believed the "US will eventually get back to what it was" as a key destination for global investment dollars.

He acknowledged, however, that the trade barriers, dimming economic outlook for the US, and the bellicose rhetoric towards longstanding international allies and trade partners from the White House has prompted investors to consider alternatives.

"The opportunity for diversification in other markets like Europe and others, which was interesting before, becomes more interesting," Bennett said.

On April 2, Trump escalated his reordering of global trade by unveiling sweeping tariffs against dozens of nations.

Few alternatives can compete with the US

There are reasons to believe, however, that global investment into US real estate, which is not directly impacted by trade barriers, might remain robust even in a world where the US faces economic backlash and retaliation for its new policies.

"Does that mean the US is going to get blacklisted? The answer is absolutely not," said Dirk Aulabaugh, the global head of the advisory services group at Green Street. "The US still has the best growth, we still have the most transparency, we still have the most stable government. So there are a lot of things that investors have to check boxes on that the US is still going to be the best."

Sam Tenenbaum, the head of multifamily insights, at the real estate services firm Cushman & Wakefield said that he had recently had a conversation with a Canadian investment firm that was considering a US acquisition. The investor, he said, was bothered by the international tensions between the US and Canada, but would pursue the deal if it made economic sense.

"They're not happy about it, but I wouldn't characterize it as affecting their investment decisions," Tenenbaum said.

• Wealthy individuals are moving to luxury estates in Paradise Valley, Arizona, and Park City, Utah.
• Both areas offer privacy, nature access, and proximity to business hubs.
• I visited both and found there were also key differences. Only one would suit my lifestyle.

From the "Beverly Hills of Arizona" to Utah's Silicon Slopes, the most expensive cities in these states have one thing in common: rich people are flocking to their luxury mountain estates tucked away next to business-booming capitals.

Paradise Valley, Arizona, which earned its Beverly Hills nickname by attracting high-profile residents, is the most expensive city in Arizona, according to Zillow's home value index. Meanwhile, Park City, a ski resort town in Utah's tech hub, is the most expensive place to live in Utah.

I'm a New Yorker who visited both millionaire hideouts — Paradise Valley in April 2024 and Park City in January 2025.

I'm quite fond of the bustling lifestyle my city offers, so I didn't expect to leave either place with the thought that I'd consider moving there someday, but one of these towns felt like a place I could call home in the distant future.

Paradise Valley and Park City are wealthy areas on the outskirts of major cities.

At the bases of the Camelback and Mummy mountains, Paradise Valley sits on roughly 15 square miles of land between Phoenix and Scottsdale. It's about a 20-minute drive to the Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport.

On 20 square miles along Utah's Wasatch Front, Park City is conveniently located near Salt Lake City and the tech-centric suburbs of Draper and Lehi, among others. Park City is roughly 30 to 45 minutes away from Salt Lake City International Airport by car.

Paradise Valley has been a residential enclave since its inception in the 1960s.

Paradise Valley was developed for residents craving an escape from the fast-paced lifestyles in the neighboring cities of Phoenix and Scottsdale, according to the town's website.

Today, Paradise Valley remains mostly residential, save for a few resorts and businesses on the town's borders.

According to World Population Review, Paradise Valley has roughly 12,400 residents and a median household income of $236,250.

Shawn Shackleton, a local real-estate agent, told Business Insider that Paradise Valley has had a primarily luxury market since she began selling homes there more than 20 years ago.

Park City grew into a ski town over the last century.

Park City wasn't always a luxury ski hub. When the city was established in 1884, it was known for its silver mining industry, according to the town's website. In 1930, when a ski jump was built on a mine site on top of a pile of wasted rock, Park City began to transform into a skier's paradise. During the 2002 Olympic Games, the town hosted ski jumping and bobsledding events.

The town has grown a lot since then, and it's gotten more expensive, local real-estate agent Derrik Carlson told BI.

Today, Park City has about 8,100 residents with a median household income of $140,875, according to World Population Review.

Billionaires, celebrities, and wealthy Californians buy homes in Paradise Valley.

Shackelton told BI that larger lots and lower taxes have drawn affluent residents to Paradise Valley, from entrepreneurs and C-suite executives to medical professionals and retirees.

AZ Central reported that high-profile people, from musicians Alice Cooper and Alicia Keys to Campbell Soup heir Bennett Dorrance and pro athletes including Michael Phelps and MLB Hall of Famer Randy Johnson, have purchased homes in Paradise Valley.

Park City draws a mix of backgrounds; about half of incoming residents live there part-time.

From California to New York, Florida, and Chicago, techies, business owners, CEOs, and retirees are starting over in Park City, Carlson told BI. About half of Park City buyers are in the market for a vacation home and only reside there for about three months a year.

Curbed reported that A-list celebrities, including Taylor Swift and Justin Bieber, have lived and vacationed in the private and exclusive Colony neighborhood.

Park City is more affordable than Paradise Valley.

If I consider moving elsewhere, I have to be realistic about the cost of living. So, when I returned home from both trips, I looked at the numbers using Payscale's cost-of-living calculator, which factors in prices for housing, transportation, utilities, groceries, and healthcare.

Paradise Valley's cost of living is 123% higher than the national average, while Park City's is 66% above the national average.

In both cities, housing is the driving factor for the high cost. Paradise Valley's home expenses cost 521% more than the US average, while Park City's are 268% above the national average. You'll find cheaper groceries and utility bills in Park City, while healthcare and transportation cost less in Paradise Valley.

The luxury market dominates Paradise Valley real estate.

Paradise Valley has a median listing price of $5.2 million, according to Realtor.com.

On the high end of the market, custom homes costing around $30 million are sprawled across vast, private properties in various architectural styles, from Southwestern adobe to modern luxury.

While exploring Paradise Valley, I noticed the more affordable homes were at the town's lowest elevations. As I approached the streets leading up into the mountains, I saw nothing but luxury estates.

"When you get up into the higher price points, many of the houses in Paradise Valley are individually gated," Shackleton said. "Some like the feeling of being their own private estate."

Park City has a wider range of price points.

According to Realtor.com, Park City has a median listing price of $2.2 million, with more listings available for under $1 million than in Paradise Valley. Seeing slightly more affordable homes on the Park City market made living there seem more attainable than in Paradise Valley.

Still, the most expensive homes on the market cost up to $50 million for ski-in, ski-out mansions — some built in traditional mountain cabin style and others boasting modern architecture with flat rooftops and floor-to-ceiling windows.

Like in Paradise Valley, the price point seemed to rise with elevation. The most modest homes I spotted were at the bottom of the mountains. To see the mega-mansions, I went up to a ski resort deck and peered over the ledge. Estates sat on the edges of trails dotted with skiers. I imagined residents gearing up and sliding into the action from their front doors.

Only Park City has a downtown area with walkable streets.

As a New Yorker, having a downtown neighborhood in whatever city I live in is important to me. And as someone who doesn't drive, walkability is also crucial. So, I was excited by Old Town, Park City's downtown area, where there are homes, restaurants, stores, entertainment venues, and even ski lifts.

"Downtown is designed to be walkable to get to Main Street or skiing," Carlson said.

On Zillow, only a few condos under $1 million are listed in this neighborhood — even the smallest houses cost seven digits.

Paradise Valley is about 10 to 15 minutes from shopping in Downtown Scottsdale by car, depending on the neighborhood, but you can't beat the convenience of walking.

Both cities support active, outdoorsy lifestyles, but the weather is drastically different.

Paradise Valley and Park City are both scenic locations immersed in nature. I'm sure I'd be happy to wake up to either mountain landscape each morning. Residents of both towns said they appreciate outdoor activities like golf, hiking, and mountain biking.

But the seasons have completely different weather patterns.

When I visited Paradise Valley in the spring, it was 90 degrees Fahrenheit. I felt perpetually sweaty, and I couldn't imagine doing any strenuous activities outside in the summertime when it's often in the 100s. But I'm sure I'd spend all winter in nature, enjoying sunny, breezy days in the 70s.

Winter weather in Paradise Valley is summer weather in Park City. And Park City winters are crisp and frosty. Growing up in Connecticut, I know the challenges of months of snow — bitter walks against the wind, ice soaking my socks, and endless shoveling.

But there's also something magical about a city feeling like a completely different place for a portion of the year. I loved spending entire days shoveling my friend's backyard pond in ice skates just to glide around for an hour before sundown and do it all again the next day. And when the snow melted, I was so grateful for the spring and summer months.

I'm sure winter weather would feel even more magical in Park City if I took up skiing or snowboarding. I thought having another hobby I could only enjoy in the coldest months would make me look forward to the winter.

I could see why wealthy people are moving to both locations — but I'd only consider Park City.

Paradise Valley and Park City are both naturally stunning and provide opportunities for active lifestyles, large-scale living, and convenient city access. But Park City's walkable streets, seasonal variation, and more affordable real estate made me think it could be suitable for me someday.

• Linda Lara, 72, was pushed out of her apartment of 30 years after a significant rent hike.
• She was able to move to a subsidized apartment in senior housing, which she calls a "miracle."
• But despite working part-time and receiving Social Security, Lara struggles with limited savings.

Linda Lara always wanted to become a homeowner. But being a single mother, taking care of her elderly parents, and helping raise her three granddaughters made it impossible to ever cobble together enough for a downpayment.

Nearly six years ago, Lara was lucky enough to get off the waitlist at a subsidized senior housing development in San Mateo, California, the city 30 minutes south of San Francisco that she's called home for decades. Despite her below-market-rate rent, Lara still has to work 20 hours a week to supplement her Social Security checks and pay her bills. Like many older Americans BI has spoken with, Lara doesn't think she'll ever be able to retire.

When Lara's daughter was 12 years old, they moved into a one-bedroom apartment in San Mateo that Lara ended up calling home for almost 30 years. They loved the neighborhood, the old apartment's "charming" features, and, most importantly, the affordable rent. Lara never wanted to leave.

"It had hardwood floors, arches, it had an old Wedgewood stove. It had French doors that went out to a patio," Lara told BI. "It was a really sweet little apartment."

But in 2019, the apartment building was sold. The new owners informed Lara they were more than doubling her rent, which she couldn't afford.

Luckily, Lara had entered herself into several lotteries for low-income senior apartments a few years earlier. Just as she faced being forced out of her home, she was informed she'd been selected for a 380-square-foot studio apartment in a subsidized building catering to older residents just a couple blocks away from her long-time home. She seized the opportunity and quickly moved in, relieved to pay less than $800 a month in rent.

"It was like a miracle, a gift from heaven that presented itself right when I needed it," Lara said.

But the rent rises every year. It's now about $1,000 a month. Lara works part-time as an office administrator for the county parks department, which pays her about $2,170 a month, and she collects $1,547 in monthly Social Security. Her Social Security payments are less than they otherwise would be because she took the benefit early, at 62, when she stopped working full-time to help take care of her granddaughters.

Lara worries that if she loses her job or is no longer able to work, she won't be able to afford even her subsidized home. With very little in savings, retirement is out of the question.

"I'll be working probably until I die," she said. "Unless I move somewhere far away that's much less expensive."

Are you struggling to afford your housing costs, or unable to find suitable housing to age in? Reach out to this reporter at erelman@businessinsider.com.

Scarce retirement housing

Lara is far from alone. One in five Americans 50 or older say they have no retirement savings, and more than half are concerned they don't have enough saved to last them through the end of their life, an AARP survey found last year.

Housing is a big part of the problem. Many baby boomers are struggling to find affordable and accessible homes to age in. Even those who own their home and have seen their home equity soar in recent years are having trouble finding smaller homes to downsize to.

A record number of homeowners 65 and older — about one-third of older households —are cost-burdened, meaning they spend more than 30% of their income on housing and utilities, a 2023 Harvard report found. This is particularly difficult for those on fixed incomes. As a result, older people are increasingly facing homelessness. Single adults 50 or older are now estimated to account for about half of the US homeless population, up from about 10% three decades ago.

Lara doesn't want to move far away. She has deep roots in her community, and her daughter, son-in-law, and granddaughters live nearby. She said she didn't fear being pushed out of San Mateo or the Bay Area when she was raising her daughter. But these days, she said, it feels like nothing is affordable.

"Apartment prices are out of control," she said. "I have to stay in this apartment until I probably can't afford this anymore, and then I don't know what I'll do."

• Lexi and Jordan Poer bought their forever home in 2017.
• Six years later, they decided to build a second home for Lexi Poer's mom on their property.
• The two homes are connected, creating a multigenerational space that gives everyone independence.

Lexi Poer, a full-time content creator, always knew she wanted her mom to live with her family.

When her dream of combining households became a reality, she wanted to ensure her mother could maintain her independence.

Poer, her husband, and her mom decided to build a second home connected to their main house, fulfilling everyone's needs as they embraced multigenerational living.

Lexi and Jordan Poer bought their forever home in 2017.

Lexi Poer, 35, and Jordan Poer, 40, bought their home in Roswell, Georgia, in 2017, intending to make it their forever home for themselves and their two daughters, Kennedy and Addie. They also have two dogs, Baby and Paris.

"We purchased the house from the original owners, and it was built in the early '70s," Lexi Poer told BI of the four-bedroom home. "Everything was well-maintained and updated as needed, but we were able to come in and spend what we call the fun money on bringing it up to date aesthetically."

They did some initial renovations on the property before moving into the house in March 2018.

Poer had always dreamed of her mom moving in with her family, and in 2023, it felt like the right time to make the move.

Poer told BI that she and her mom, Sandra Vassell, 64, have always been close. Vassell raised her as a single mom, and Poer said she was clear with her husband in the early days of their relationship that she always planned for her mom to live with them someday.

"As a child, I always imagined having a compound with several houses in a cul-de-sac so we each had our own space but lived near each other," Poer said. "My mom was just laughing, thinking I was crazy."

In 2020, Poer and her family started thinking more about having Vassell live with them, as COVID made seeing each other difficult. Shortly after, when housing prices skyrocketed, it seemed like a sign that they should consolidate into one space.

"We figured out that she would be able to sell her home for far more than she purchased it not many years before that and invest that money into our home and building her own space," Poer said. "That was the piece that made the dream a reality."

It was important to the Poers and Vassell that everyone maintained their independence.

As the Poers started thinking about creating an in-law suite for Vassell in their home, maintaining her independence was a priority.

"She very much wanted to make sure that she had all of the things she needed to live independently in her space, like somewhere to park her car and enter her home without having to come through our house, access to the outdoor space without having to enter our house, her own laundry room, her own kitchen," Poer said.

Likewise, the Poers liked entertaining friends and didn't want their social life to disrupt Vassell's routine.

They decided to build a separate house for Vassell that attaches to the main house.

Rather than building a separate guest house in a different area of their yard, the Poers and Vassell wanted the two homes to truly connect, both for curb appeal and to fit their lifestyle.

"We imagined when the girls wake up on Saturday morning, they always want to run down and go into Nana's house and watch cartoons or have breakfast with her," Poer said, as her daughters often spent weekends at their grandmother's house when she didn't live with them.

They didn't want the kids to have to think about grabbing a jacket or rain boots to run across the yard, and they also wanted their dogs to be able to wander through the spaces.

The houses form one structure, though the new addition has its own driveway and garage.

The homes connect through a walk-in pantry in the Poers' house.

The new home is connected to the main house through a walk-in pantry that Poer and her mom use.

"It's where we put the things that neither of us needs daily but both want access to, and we didn't really feel like we needed double of everything," Poer said, pointing to items like a stand mixer or Christmas china.

The space, which sits off the main house's kitchen, is lined with cabinets and counters. At the end of the hall, a door leads to Vassell's home.

The connected entrance opens to the kitchen, mirroring the big house.

Vassell's home is 1,000 square feet in total. From the exterior, the houses look like one building, though her area is completely self-sustaining.

The door connecting her house to the main home doesn't have a lock, so the Poers and Vassell can come and go from each other's homes as they please.

The kitchen features a large island and built-in cabinetry, and Vassell has her own butler's pantry in addition to the one she shares with the Poers. Her house features 16-foot vaulted ceilings that make it feel open and airy.

An open-concept floor plan makes the home feel spacious.

Vassell's living room is open-concept, and she has an exterior door that leads to a shared patio outside the house.

Because the house was customized to fit Vassell's needs, it has areas designed just for her, like a craft closet.

"She's a big crafter, so she has this dream craft closet that unfolds and can fold back up and holds all of her crafting storage," Poer said.

Vassell's house also has its own washer and dryer, so she doesn't have to share with the rest of the family.

Vassell's home has a special room for the girls.

"We call it the snug," Poer said of the 50-square-foot room, which is painted a soft pink and features a twin bed, toys, and keepsakes that belong to Poer's daughters.

"That is the girls' space within Nana's house, and that was something they requested," Poer said. "It was important for them to feel like they could still go over and have sleepovers with grandma because they love doing that."

"Long-term, it could totally be an additional storage space or an office or a little exercise space," she said. "It could be multiple purposes when the kids outgrow that space."

The bedroom is spacious, too.

A hallway leads to the bedroom suite, so it isn't right off the main living area.

"There's a bit more privacy for both the bedroom and the bathroom, and then between those, she has her large walk-in closet as well," Poer said.

The bedroom has high ceilings, adding to the spacious feel.

The Poers thought long-term when designing Vassell's bathroom.

The bathroom was designed to be wheelchair accessible, so it will work for Vassell — or the Poers — if their mobility changes.

"We truly want this home to stay in the family," Lexi said. "People don't do that nowadays. But I definitely feel like, with home prices and the way they're going, that is going to become more normal, especially when you have invested so much money into your home like we have."

"We always say, even when Nana's gone someday, my husband and I might end up moving into what is now Nana's house, and maybe one of the girls will want to take over our home," she said. "We're definitely not forcing that on them but leaving the door open to explore."

The Poers' hope that they could pass the house down to their daughters is also part of why they didn't build a separate guest house, which might have given the property a higher resale value than a connected house. They wanted to create the future that worked for them, not a potential buyer.

"We have zero desire to move again, and my husband and I would be plenty content just living in that 1000 square feet once the girls are out of the house," Poer added.

The Poers gave their home a major upgrade during the renovation, too.

While adding Vassell's home to their property, Poer and her husband also renovated the second floor of their house so it would better serve their family.

They turned their original primary bedroom into two massive his-and-hers closets and built out an additional 500 square feet that became their new primary suite and luxurious laundry room.

Poer said the original primary suite was dated, and although they had renovated it in 2017, it still didn't feel like it flowed with the rest of the house.

"It just felt like we're adding such an investment into this house that the primary suite needs to reflect that," she said. "We felt making a larger, more modern-size primary bedroom and bathroom and then larger closets made the home value more what it should be overall, especially with adding the square footage."

After the renovation, the house had five bedrooms and 3.5 bathrooms.

The renovation cost $350,000 in total.

Poer said Vassell's home was built for around $200,000, and the renovations to the second floor of the main house cost around $150,000.

Although the renovation was costly, the project has saved the Poer family money day to day since they only have one household that three adults pay into.

"Sure, electricity goes up, but it doesn't double," Lexi said. "It's still not you're like you're paying two electric bills. It's just one slightly higher electric bill and the same with all utilities."

Plus, the trio has three income sources they can draw from if something breaks in Vassell's home, and Poer said they're already saving money on groceries and wasting less food. Poer also said their living arrangements save her and her mom time.

"Instead of her having to clean her house and I have to clean my house, we can have a day where we're cleaning up the house," Poer said. "Now, that takes time off of both of our plates to then be able to garden together or go to get coffee together or something like that."

Poer and her whole family are closer than ever now that they live together.

"We're able to do things more often together than we did before," Poer said, adding that it's easy for her mom to be part of little "family moments" daily.

"She's at every single sporting event because she just hops in the car with us and goes. Or if we're watching 'Harry Potter' for the first time, she's able to make popcorn and pop over," Poer said. "She's able to witness more of those core memory moments with her grandkids, and she and I are able to spend more time together when the kids are at school together."

Poer and her mom's close relationship helped make the transition to sharing a property easy. Still, she also credits their design process with ensuring the home and the in-law suite work for their whole family. She said combining households is smoothest when you balance people's independence with "the value each person brings into the whole family dynamic."

"Everyone wants to still feel like they have their home and it's their safe space, their comfort zone," she said.

Poer hopes more families in the US embrace multigenerational living.

"It's not a new concept," she said. "It's been around in so many cultures."

Poer said she is excited to see more people creating multigenerational homes, and she loves sharing her experience with it on social media to help others see how easy it can be to make it work for their families.

"I think as a society, one of our biggest things that we're going to have to get through is this culture of isolation that phones and electronics and we've created for ourselves, and what better way to do that than just having your family surround you and love on you and be your built-in community right in your house," Poer said.

• Devon Zuegel, a San Francisco tech worker, longed to live in more of a community.
• She is building Esmeralda, a small city in Sonoma Wine Country.
• She hosts Edge Esmeralda, a pop-up event to give people an idea of what Esmeralda could look like.

Devon Zuegel graduated from Stanford and moved to San Francisco in 2016 for her software engineering career. Then, the pandemic hit.

Zuegel and her husband temporarily relocated to Chautauqua, the New York lake resort town where her grandmother lived, and Zuegel visited as a child.

In the summer, the tiny village blossoms into a kind of utopia — walkable, family-friendly, and brimming with culture. Up to 7,500 people flock to spend their days hopping between plays, symphony performances, and lectures.

One night, Zuegel's husband wondered aloud: "Why aren't there more places like this?" That moment is "burned into my retinas," Zuegel told Business Insider.

That was the start of Esmeralda, a small town Zuegel is building in the Sonoma Wine Country, about 90 minutes north of San Francisco. Zuegel drew inspiration from Chautauqua and similar walkable communities, such as Vail in Colorado, Charleston in South Carolina, and Arizona's new car-free neighborhood.

The goal, Zuegel told BI, is to build a primarily walkable and bikeable town within the city of Cloverdale, revitalizing an existing community rather than building one from scratch. At the same time, Esmeralda would offer something new: regular opportunities for residents to connect.

Esmeralda speaks to a larger trend of millennials seeking more variety in where they live, whether they'releaving larger cities — or building their own.

Esmeralda is the latest American experiment in intentional living

Zuegel wants to build Esmeralda incrementally, inviting prospective town members to come together to share their visions and hopes for a new way of life.

A key lesson she learned from Chautauqua's town archivist was its slow-growth model. The summer camp, founded in 1874 as a retreat for teachers, took time to grow into a full-fledged town. After several years of people pitching up tents, participants started to bring their families and upgraded to more permanent shacks.

America has a long history of intentional communities, where like-minded individuals band together, believing they've cracked the code for a better life. In most cases, the community grows organically, shaped by the people who join.

In the 18th century, the Shakers, a Christian sect dedicated to pacifism and celibacy, established "utopias" throughout New England, emphasizing shared property. In the 19th century, the Transcendentalists, a philosophical movement, flocked to Brook Farm in Massachusetts, where famous writers Nathaniel Hawthorne and Margaret Fuller dabbled in "plain living."

Intentional communities surged in the 1960s and 1970s as counterculture movements fueled new communes of young people intent on "dropping out" of traditional society. Vermont, in particular, saw over 75 new communes, expert Yvonne Daley told Forbes, which changed the political spirit of the state.

Today, an estimated 3,500 intentional communities dot the US, according to the nonprofit Foundation for Intentional Community, with a broad definition spanning student co-ops, eco-living communities, and religious groups.

To shape her new town, Zuegel launched Edge Esmeralda, a monthlong pop-up event designed to give attendees a taste of what the real Esmeralda could be. In 2024, the retreat hosted over 1,300 people through 25 different program tracks on topics like AI and longevity. Attendees, who could stay for a day, a week, or a whole month, enjoyed various activities such as building a solar-powered A-frame house, joining a "neurotech" workshop, a hackathon, or taking in an art exhibit. Zuegel plans to host another Edge Esmeralda in 2025.

Canadian college student Anson Yu, who attended Edge Esmeralda as an energy fellow, told BI that the experience gave her hope that Zuegel's team could deliver on their vision. Days spent building the A-frame house, followed by nights of swing-dancing in the town square, made her feel like a special community was coming together.

"I felt like there could be spaces that exist like this, outside of the couple of city centers that already exist, and outside of college campuses," Yu said.

A millennial shift in priorities

Edge Esmeralda attendees represent many millennials who yearn for a greater sense of community.

In many ways, a community like Esmerelda is a natural response from members of the "job-hopping generation" who pioneered remote work. What if that dream of flexible living could include a stronger sense of community?

When millennials came into the workforce around the 2008 recession, we saw a shift in how young people viewed life and work, Dr. Katherine Loflin, a sociologist known as "The City Doctor," told Business Insider.

Appetite for jobs in manufacturing and utilities — ones that required a worker to live nearby — declined significantly between 1990 and 2015, according to the Pew Research Center. Meanwhile, demand for desk jobs swung up.

Loflin, who studies the characteristics that draw people to different places, said job seekers told her they craved flexibility and work-life balance. They didn't want to follow the conveyor belt into an industry that could crumble at any minute. They were more interested in developing transferable "soft skills" that could lead to bigger salary jumps and the option of remote work.

The pandemic turbocharged that trend: Suddenly, the fantasy of working from anywhere became a reality. But there was something missing. Big city life often felt lonely, with fewer opportunities to make easy connections, especially aswork became more remote. Some missed campus life, when they could easily befriend people they saw in class or on the quad.

"So many people refer to college as the best years of their lives," Zuegel said.

Because of the more effortless sense of community, Loflin said campus-like towns "harken back to a time where people felt alive, they felt in it together."

The isolation of the pandemic prompted Zuegel to think about cities and the ways they create or restrict access to community. "The pandemic kept people apart, but that actually showed us how much we need friends and family," she said.

Beta-testing a community

So far, some fellow tech workers are excited about Esmeralda and even see themselves living there. However, some online commenters have expressed skepticism toward Esmeralda, particularly concerning affordable housing, transportation, or if locals really want to share a home with wealthy VCs.

Loflin said it's common for city developers to overly focus on aesthetics, forgetting to consider other logistics, like long-term community building or accessible infrastructure.

Zuegel is aware of the issues that may come up, hence the slower timeline. "A lot of real estate developers' approach is they build it and then hope people will be a part of it," Zuegel said. "We want to take a much more incremental and gradual path."

She said the project is still in "phase 0," with hopes of involving the local Cloverdale community as much as possible.

Local residents are excited about the project, Cloverdale city manager Kevin Thompson told BI. For two decades, real estate developers have swept in and out of town with big ideas for the plot of land that Zuegel's team has contracted, only to burn out quickly.

Thompson said no group in recent years has gone this far in the due diligence process as Esmeralda's, which gives the locals hope that progress is happening.

"There's been a lot of tire kickers over the years," Thompson said. "We've never gotten to this point of anyone actually submitting any paperwork to change it."

Zuegel said the exact logistics of Esmeralda are subject to change as she continues to learn from Edge Esmeralda. Her vision involves a pedestrian-friendly community, safe for young kids to play outside on their own, and accessible enough for older adults. She also wants a mix of locals and visitors, as full-time residents will be the soul of Esmeralda.

Ultimately, the guiding light is for her to feel as she did in all her Chautauqua summers as a child. "The idea is the culture from a big city, but with sort of the small town charm."

• At the end of 2023, I decided to travel around Europe to find a new place to call home.
• I visited cities in Spain, Greece, and the UK before settling in the perfect spot.
• I've now been living in London for a few months, and couldn't be happier with my move.

By the time I turned 18, I'd lived in four different countries — England, Kuwait, China, and the United Arab Emirates.

Sparked by my desire to live in one place — and the draw of reasonable university fees — I moved to my "home country" of the Netherlands, where my parents were from but I'd never lived before.

For almost 10 years, I lived there and ignored the growing sense of restlessness within me. However, I couldn't say I was truly happy.

Knowing it was time for a change, I decided to start thinking about moving somewhere else.

So, at the end of 2023, I gave up my apartment, stored my belongings in my mom's basement, and decided to travel the world to find my new home.

I started my journey in Spain

My first stop was Xàbia, Spain, a coastal town where I spent five weeks petsitting a red lab in a stunning house overlooking the ocean.

Here, I saw what it would be like to live somewhere I could spend my weekends at the beach or hiking.

I loved being in a place with an abundance of sunshine, but ultimately, it didn't feel like home. So, I decided to move on to my next destination.

Next, I spent two weeks in Belfast

I had never visited Northern Ireland before, and I immediately fell in love with the country's dynamic energy. I loved the comedy clubs, cozy pubs, and history lining the streets.

However, I felt like something was missing, and didn't find enough variety in the restaurant scene to satisfy my cravings. So, I continued my search.

I headed to Kythira, an island in Greece

Every year, my friends and I take a two-week vacation to a different Greek island.

So, when we traveled to Kythira, I was curious to see if it was a place I'd want to call home.

I pictured spending a year on the sandy beaches with the sun shining down on me. After a long day of work, I could even take a dip in the ocean.

However, after talking to locals, I learned the island was pretty empty outside the summer season. So, I realized I'd always be chasing that summer holiday feeling.

After struggling to find a place that felt like home, I decided to return to the country I was born in

After several misses, I decided to try England, the place where I was born and lived until I was three. However, I'd only visited a few times in the years since.

I spent three weeks dogsitting in a small village in Bedfordshire, which is north of London. The idyllic countryside beckoned me, with long walks in the forest, Sunday roasts in the same pub, and evenings spent reading in the garden.

I yearned for this tranquil existence, but recognized it wasn't time for me to live this type of lifestyle yet. With my isolating work and single status, finding my people in such a small village would be hard.

So, I decided to try two weeks in Cambridge, a city I'd heard so much about. I loved working in various cafes, visiting museums on weekends, and meeting people my age.

However, Cambridge is a student city at its core, which didn't feel right for where I was at during this part of my life.

I finally ended up settling in the perfect city

Finally, I spent a month in London when my sister asked me to watch her pomsky.

I assumed the expensive, busy, and overwhelmingly gray city wasn't for me based on previous short visits. However, during this trip I got to see another side of London.

I loved the large parks that made me forget I was in a city, the dazzling theater scene, and the cozy cafés where I could type away without feeling lonely.

I grabbed coffee with fellow journalists I met online and recognized a potential community. Because London is a highly populated city, I felt like I had the best chance of finding my tribe — something I'd been missing for the past few years.

After a few months in London, I couldn't be happier

I've been in London for a few months now, and still feel like I'm trying to find my feet. However, I'm slowly building a community and even reached out to high school friends who ended up in London after university.

I always visit the same local café, where I sit with my laptop and a dirty chai at least twice a week. I avoid crowded areas like Soho and Liverpool Street and push myself to visit a large park every weekend.

Sometimes, I feel like Carrie from "Sex and the City," and other times, I feel far less glamorous and far more cold.

I didn't think I could be happy in such a busy and urban setting, but I've loved carving out my piece of the city, and I plan to keep doing so.

• Anna Cooper, 32, worked in property management for two years after college.
• She's used her negotiation skills to bring down her rent and parking fees.
• Cooper shared four insider tips to successfully negotiate with your landlord.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Anna Cooper, 32, who worked as a resident services coordinator. Business Insider has verified Cooper's employment history. The following has been edited for length and clarity.

From 2018 to 2020, I worked as a resident services coordinator for a luxury multi-family property in Washington DC and learned a lot about the rental process from the landlord side of things.

The pandemic made people more sensitive about their finances, and as a result, many became more proactive about negotiating their rent. It was great to see rent negotiations firsthand because before then, I didn't even know that was something you could do.

I've since moved on from working in property management, but I've used the tips I learned from the job to negotiate my own rent.

Understand the leverage you have

Many people don't think they have the option to negotiate, but you can definitely make your renting experience work in your favor.

When you think about it from the landlord perspective, it's important for them to retain you as a tenant. It's really expensive to turn a unit over. They have to push out marketing to let the public know, "Hey, these units are now up for lease," and there are different companies that they use and have to pay for to put a unit back on the market.

Once you take that into account, you realize you can negotiate to stay and lock in another lease. That way, the landlord doesn't have to worry about a unit sitting vacant for X amount of months or a year when they could continue to bring in profit just by negotiating with someone to resign.

Line up your negotiation chips early

You want to start doing your research 60 to 90 days before your lease renewal date. If you start thinking about the renewal process a few months ahead of time, you can get a better idea of the rental market.

Are there better properties with cheaper rates? What's my experience at the building I'm in right now? Could it be better? These are all good questions to ask yourself.

It's also important to keep track of your experience on the current lease because these could become negotiating chips. Maybe you've had a lot of service requests and maintenance orders for things that are no fault of your own. For example, maybe you have a washer and dryer that has just not been great. Maybe there's a new building across the street, but you were told you would be living across from an empty lot, and the construction has impacted your peace of mind. Keep note of things that have impacted your quality of living, and be prepared to bring them up in your negotiations.

People don't often consider starting early. They'll wait for a letter or an email from their property manager to start the lease renewal process, but by that point, they've lost the edge on time.

Don't be discouraged by a 'no'

Sometimes, when you send a letter or email to your landlord to negotiate, you get told "no."

It sucks, but if that happens, be prepared to ask them again. Check to see if there's someone above your landlord, like the regional property manager. Everyone answers to something above them if it's a larger property. For mom-and-pop landlords, you may have less leverage.

It also doesn't hurt to ask your neighbors what they're paying for rent, if they negotiated, and if they've experienced any issues living in the building. Getting more information can help you negotiate with your landlord more effectively.

Negotiate different amenities, and keep a paper trail

When I moved to LA, I created an Excel spreadsheet of all of the properties I toured. I tracked things like the rent, the square footage of the unit, what amenities were included, parking, and other important details.

After I went on these tours, I compared each of them to see what made the most sense.

If some properties were a couple of blocks away or within a mile of another one, I would open up negotiations with the property manager and say something like, "It's between this apartment and another one. This one has a bit more square footage, but this one here is charging a bit more for parking."

When it came to signing a lease, I spoke to the leasing agent who gave me the tour.

Anytime you're negotiating something like this, you want to have that trail in writing. I sent a follow-up email to the leasing agent saying, "Hey, thank you so much for the tour. As discussed earlier today, I would love if we could look into potential options for a longer lease term, plus a parking credit."

He replied back to the email saying that he would loop in his regional manager. In the end, instead of signing a 12-month lease term, I negotiated a 13-month lease term that made my rent cheaper and included a discounted rate on parking.

• Rental property owners can leverage tax deductions to lower taxable income significantly.
• Depreciation and cost segregation studies can maximize tax benefits and increase cash flow.
• One CPA says that her high-income clients regularly save seven figures in taxes from cost seg studies.

There are tax advantages that come with owning rental properties — most notably, deductions that will lower your taxable income.

Investors can deduct any expense associated with managing and maintaining their properties, from homeowner's insurance and mortgage interest to business equipment and travel.

One major deduction worth strategizing around is depreciation, CPA Kristel Espinosa told Business Insider — and there's an "easy strategy to maximize that depreciation deduction," she added.

Depreciation is the loss of an asset's value, and investors can claim the value of depreciation as a tax deduction for the entire expected life of the property, which the IRS has determined is 27.5 years for residential buildings and 39 years for commercial buildings. To calculate the annual depreciation on a rental, you divide the value of the property (not including the value of the land) by 27.5 or 39, depending on the property type.

A cost segregation study can help investors accelerate depreciation deductions and, as a result, increase cash flow. It reviews all of a building's external and internal components, some of which can be written off much quicker than the building structure.

"An architectural engineer actually goes out to the property or reviews the blueprints and basically says: 'You could break this building down into smaller components. There are partitions, there's flooring, there's electrical,'" explained Espinosa.

Some of those components can have tax lives that are much shorter — either five, seven, or 15 years — than the standard 27.5 or 39-year timelines. The cost segregation study may find that $100,000 of interior fixtures can be depreciated over five years, for example, and another $100,000 can be depreciated over seven.

"There's a rule out there for tax purposes that says, if you have property that is less than 20 years in depreciable life then you can go ahead and take an immediate write-off of that depreciation expense up to 60%," said Espinosa, referring to allowable deductions for bonus depreciation, which is 60% for 2024.

"That percentage changes every year but, as you can see, you can now take this huge depreciation deduction instead of having to wait the whole 39 years to get that depreciation," she said. "You can take a big chunk in those first couple of years and basically put yourself into a loss position because the deduction is so large, and not have to pay any tax — and that loss generally carries over. If you don't need all of the loss in the current year, that loss carries over into subsequent years, so those losses could shelter the rental income from this property for years to come."

Timing is important, she added: "Act before bonus depreciation phases out completely, post-2026."

How investors are saving seven figures in taxes doing 'cost segs'

Hiring a professional to perform a cost segregation study will cost thousands of dollars, but the tax savings can easily outweigh the cost.

"Last year we helped one of our clients save probably $1.8 million in taxes just by doing a cost seg — and the cost seg only cost them about $10,000," said Espinosa, whose firm operates out of Irvine, California. That wasn't an extreme case for her client base, which includes high-income earners in top tax brackets who typically own large portfolios and commercial buildings.

The savings from a cost seg study can vary significantly depending on a property's purchase price, type, and depreciation reallocation. As a general rule of thumb, "a cost segregation study typically allows 20% to 40% of a building's cost to be reclassified into shorter depreciation periods," said Espinosa. "This can generate first-year tax savings of $50,000 to $150,000+ per $1 million in building cost, depending on the study results and your tax situation."

She gives the example of a $15 million commercial building. A cost seg may reclassify $3 million to $5 million into five-, seven-, or 15-year assets, she said. Assuming $5 million is eligible for bonus depreciation, multiply that by 60% to get $3 million in depreciation deductions.

"Take the $3 million in deductions and multiply it by their tax rate of 37% and that's $1.11 million in federal tax savings alone," said Espinosa. "There is even more benefit if you live in a state with high-income taxes."

Smaller investors can also see big tax savings, she added: "Even a $2 million property can yield $100,000 to $300,000 in federal deductions.

Not every property will benefit from doing a cost seg. The strategy typically works best with commercial properties, as there are more components than a residential home.

While there is no IRS rule limiting the number of cost segregation studies you can do, you'll want to use them strategically, said Espinosa: "Focus on new properties or major renovations. Avoid double-dipping on already classified assets."

She advised retaining engineering reports and tax filings to defend against audits and work with CPAs and cost segregation specialists for accurate studies.

"Cost segregation is powerful but requires careful execution."

• Mark Zuckerberg has been quietly snapping up massive chunks of real estate for years.
• The tech billionaire has bought hundreds of acres of Hawaiian land.
• He also recently reportedly bought property in Washington, DC.

Mark Zuckerberg is one of the world's richest people, and his multimillion-dollar real estate portfolio reflects that.

The man responsible for Facebook is worth around an estimated $180 billion, Forbes reported, and part of that fortune includes assets like a sprawling California compound and acres of lush land on a Hawaiian island.

Zuckerberg's real-estate dealings are often shrouded in privacy, including the use of limited-liability companies and addresses linked to the investment management firm Iconiq Capital.

His most recent purchase appears to be a $23 million mansion in the Massachusetts Avenue Heights neighborhood of Washington, DC. A Meta spokesperson confirmed that Zuckerberg recently bought a home in the area, which reportedly closed in March, per Politico.

"Mark and Priscilla have purchased a home in DC, which will allow Mark to spend more time there as Meta continues the work on policy issues related to American technology leadership," a spokesperson said to Politico.

Over the years, he's bought and sold homes all over the country. He's also reportedly built some — a Hawaiian doomsday ranch that has had many scratching their heads, for example.

Zuckerberg's real estate portfolio has an assessed value of around $200 million, according to Business Insider calculations based on property assessments.

However, the assessed value of properties can be lower than reported purchase prices (or current market value), so Zuckerberg's holdings are likely worth significantly more.

Representatives for Zuckerberg didn't immediately respond to BI's previous request for comment.

Here's what we know about his real estate.

Zuckerberg owns a residential compound in Palo Alto.

It's no surprise that a tech titan has more than one property in Silicon Valley. The Meta CEO owns five homes in the Crescent Park neighborhood of Palo Alto.

He gave viewers a rare peek inside one of them in 2016; the house is even tricked out with a "custom-made artificially intelligent assistant," according to CNBC. The home is only a 10-minute drive from the Meta HQ in Menlo Park.

He bought the first Crescent Park property in May 2011 for $7 million.

Architectural Digest described it as a "'no frills abode" that chooses function over extravagance. Zuckerberg then spent over $43 million on the four homes surrounding his original residence in Crescent Park, The Wall Street Journal reported.

He sold his San Francisco townhouse in 2022 for a reported $31 million.

The four-bedroom, four-bathroom home is located near San Francisco's Dolores Park. He and his wife, Priscilla Chan, reportedly spent $10 million to purchase the townhouse in 2010.

At the time of the sale in 2022, it was the largest residential real estate deal in the city.

He bought two adjacent estates on the shore of Lake Tahoe around 2019.

Lake Tahoe is a popular vacation destination for wealthy Californians in both summer and winter, and Zuckerberg and his family are no exception.

The tax records of the two properties — known as Carousel Estate and Brushwood Estate — display the same address as tax records of other properties linked to Zuckerberg, according to documents viewed by BI.

Zuckerberg reportedly paid $59 million for both properties.

At 5,322 square feet, the Brushwood Estate features six bedrooms, five baths, and two half baths, according to SF Gate. Inside are high-beamed ceilings and picture windows; outside are lush trees, a private dock, and a hot tub. There's also a 2,293-square-foot guesthouse.

The Meta exec owns over 1,200 acres of land in Hawaii.

It's unclear exactly how many acres of land Zuckerberg currently owns on Kauai, but he began buying up a region of the island back in 2014.

BI tracked down at least 1,200 acres between 17 parcels of land that have the same tax address as other properties mentioned above, but are owned by LLCs including Kahu'aina Holdings LLC and Pila'a International LLC.

The 1,200 acres include about 750 acres he reportedly paid $100 million in 2014 for. That encompasses a more than 350-acre span of land on Pila'a Beach.

His plans for Koolau Ranch seem to be in preparation for the worst case scenario.

Another part of Zuckerberg's Hawaii holdings is the nearly 600 acres of land on Kauai's North Shore that reportedly cost him around $53 million in 2021.

On one of his Hawaiian parcels, Zuckerberg is reportedly building a huge compound that's said to include a 5,000-square-foot underground bunker with an escape hatch. It's been dubbed Koolau Ranch, and Wired reported that buying the land and creating the compound cost the executive an estimated $270 million.

In March 2025, he purchased a 15,000-square-foot mansion in Washington, DC.

As Silicon Valley continues to infiltrate Washington, DC, Zuckerberg established a residence in the US capital, Politico said. The home that's reportedly his new pad is situated in Massachusetts Avenue Heights, not far from the Naval Observatory and the Washington National Cathedral, according to Builder magazine.

Zuckerberg kept the purchase private, Politico said. The mansion in question was sold for $23 million in cash. It was designed by local firm Robert Gurney Architect and sits on about one acre of property.

Business Insider was unable to independently confirm that Zuckerberg purchased the property.

Hillary Hoffower contributed to an earlier version of this story.

• Home prices have surged, raising required income for homeownership by 49.5% since 2020: Bankrate
• Two-thirds of states saw an increase in needed income of over 50%; Utah leads with an 89% rise.
• But some states, like Ohio, Alabama, and Missouri, are still more affordable.

Buying a home has gotten a lot more difficult since the pandemic.

With home prices surging around the country since 2020, the average household income needed to purchase a home at the median national price has risen by 49.5%, according to a new report from Bankrate.

About two-thirds of states have seen a surge in required income more than 50%. Utah comes in on top with an 89% increase in the last five years, the report said.

But on an absolute basis, some required household incomes to buy the average home are still fairly reasonable, well below the US average of $116,986 — which buys a $418,489 home.

Still, given the nationwide rise in the required income to buy a home, the report listed a few tips for breaking into the market, like improving your credit score to secure a lower mortgage rate; finding out about down-payment assistance programs; looking at cheaper options like condos; and simply waiting until you're in a better financial position.

Below are the 10 states with the lowest household incomes needed to buy the state's median-priced home, ranked in descending order, according to the Bankrate study. The increase in income required since 2020 is also included, as is the median home price and its monthly mortgage payment.

10. Alabama

Salary needed to buy median-priced house, January 2025: $77,262

5-year increase in salary needed: 49.4%

Monthly mortgage payment, January 2025: $1,471

Median home price, January 2025: $278,600

9. Louisiana

Salary needed to buy median-priced house, January 2025: $76,145

5-year increase in salary needed: 26.0%

Monthly mortgage payment, January 2025: $1,328

Median home price, January 2025: $251,500

8. Missouri

Salary needed to buy median-priced house, January 2025: $74,263

5-year increase in salary needed: 45.9%

Monthly mortgage payment, January 2025: $1,356

Median home price, January 2025: $256,900

7. Michigan

Salary needed to buy median-priced house, January 2025: $74,228

5-year increase in salary needed: 43.8%

Monthly mortgage payment, January 2025: $1,319

Median home price, January 2025: $249,800

6. Arkansas

Salary needed to buy median-priced house, January 2025: $73,330

5-year increase in salary needed: 57.2%

Monthly mortgage payment, January 2025: $1,351

Median home price, January 2025: $255,900

5. Indiana

Salary needed to buy median-priced house, January 2025: $72,342

5-year increase in salary needed: 65.3%

Monthly mortgage payment, January 2025: $1,363

Median home price, January 2025: $258,100

4. Mississippi

Salary needed to buy median-priced house, January 2025: $72,072

5-year increase in salary needed: 48.5%

Monthly mortgage payment, January 2025: $1,304

Median home price, January 2025: $246,900

3. Ohio

Salary needed to buy median-priced house, January 2025: $71,080

5-year increase in salary needed: 51.9%

Monthly mortgage payment, January 2025: $1,257

Median home price, January 2025: $238,000

2. Iowa

Salary needed to buy median-priced house, January 2025: $70,437

5-year increase in salary needed: 42.8%

Monthly mortgage payment, January 2025: $1,211

Median home price, January 2025: $229,400

1. West Virginia

Salary needed to buy median-priced house, January 2025: $64,179

5-year increase in salary needed: 54.3%

Monthly mortgage payment, January 2025: $1,335

Median home price, January 2025: $252,900

Buying a home is a high-stakes game, often with hundreds of thousands of dollars on the line. Making a wrong decision can lead to foreclosure and bankruptcy; making the right decision can generate wealth that is passed down for generations.

When people are ready to settle down, they're confronted with all the usual dilemmas: whether to buy a home; where to buy a home; what kind of home to buy; and how much to spend. These highly emotional decisions are all more manageable using the lessons of behavioral economics, which I studied as an economist.

When I took a new tech job offer in 2017, it meant leaving San Diego for Seattle. As I set out to find a new home for myself, my husband, and my mom in my new city, I wanted to avoid getting caught up in the competitive pressure of beating out other buyers and making rash decisions that I might later regret. So I decided to divide my search into two phases. In the first, I would take my time getting to know the city and its various neighborhoods by renting a home. In the second, once I had a clear sense of my preferences, I would begin making offers on properties that met my criteria. By taking this approach, I hoped to avoid the pitfalls of hasty decision-making and make an intelligent, informed choice.

For about five months, I spent a great deal of time exploring the different neighborhoods and assessing their pros and cons. From historic homes dating back to the 19th century to midcentury modern homes from Seattle's post-World War II boom to modern new construction, there were plenty of options.

The most significant tradeoff to be made when choosing is location versus home size. I initially thought of a short commute and a large home as must-haves, but given my budget and the need to have space for three adults and three dogs, I had to sacrifice on the length of my commute. Many homebuyers make this same compromise. According to a Redfin survey, 89% of homebuyers would rather purchase a single-family home with a backyard than a unit in a triplex with a shorter commute.

Soon we focused our efforts on West Seattle, a neighborhood located on a peninsula across the sound from downtown. My commute to the office would take about 30 minutes each way by bus, where I could at least get some work done with the complimentary WiFi. This was a decent tradeoff, given that homes in West Seattle were about $100,000 less than homes closer to the downtown office.

Now in phase two, when I began viewing properties and making offers, I became hyperconscious of how my emotions might influence my decision-making. Common mistakes made by homebuyers include becoming too attached to a particular home, fixating on the list price instead of the market value, following the herd, and letting fatigue cloud judgment.

You must try to avoid falling in love too quickly with a home. Once you start picturing your future in a home, it can become challenging to walk away, and it can suck you into a fierce bidding war. Block out any and all thoughts about hosting holidays or your children playing in the backyard. Yes, it is a good idea to consider whether the home will suit you in the future, but if you become too attached to that future, you're working against yourself. People value a home more if they already feel like they own it.

Behavioral economists have a term for this: the endowment effect. The behavioral economist Jack Knetsch has found that people's willingness to sell an item they own was lower than their willingness to buy an item they did not own, even when the subjects knew ownership was assigned randomly. In one experiment, test subjects were given either a lottery ticket or cash. Most people opted to keep whatever form of compensation they had received first instead of trading it for the other option. For a variety of reasons, whether an aversion to feeling loss or a bias toward the status quo, people tend to get attached to the bird in their hand, even when there might be two in the bush.

List prices can also be misleading. In a hot market, sellers may advertise their homes for significantly less than what buyers are ready to pay in order to spark a bidding war. This amounts to a bait-and-switch.

As a buyer, don't take the bait. Don't anchor your expectations on the listed price. The anchoring effect refers to a person's tendency to focus on the first piece of information they hear while making decisions. In a famous lab experiment by the late Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky, research subjects spun a wheel of fortune with numbers from 0 to 100. The participants were then asked to guess the share of African countries that were members of the UN. Participants whose spin landed on a lower number were more likely to guess a low number. Participants whose wheel spin landed on a high number were more likely to guess a high number. The number the needle of the wheel landed on was completely irrelevant, yet the research subjects still used it as an anchor for their guesses.

The list price of a home may contain some helpful information about what the seller believes its value is. But ultimately the value of the house is set by the market.

If you need to, take a break. Losing bidding war after bidding war — which happens a lot — fosters fatigue and impatience, which can lead you to give up too soon or to buy a home you later regret.

Behavioral economists have repeatedly found that the quality of decisions deteriorates when an individual is overburdened with too many options. A study published in Health Economics found that orthopedic surgeons made worse recommendations toward the end of their shifts. Doctors were less likely to recommend surgery for patients who would have benefited just as much from surgery as patients seen earlier in the surgeon's shift.

Also, avoid following the herd. If others are ready to bid high, you could be tempted to do the same and stretch your budget. Herding behavior, another behavioral economics term, can lead to bubbles in the housing market or the stock market and was one of the culprits for the subprime mortgage crisis of 2008. The best way to avoid getting caught up in speculation bubbles is to not speculate in the first place and make offers appropriate only to your personal financial circumstances.

After spending a few weeks touring homes in the area, I came across a property that immediately caught my eye. It had everything my family was looking for. But there was one giant red flag: the home had been on the market for nearly a year without any offers.

Upon further inspection, I noticed that the house was located across the street from a strip mall and had a strange layout. Even though I liked the home, I wanted to avoid paying more than other buyers might think it was worth. So I kept looking.

When buying a home, you have no choice but to concern yourself with resale value. Life is unpredictable; there is always the chance you might not stay in the home long term, and you don't want to pay more than what you can resell it for.

There is tension in this advice: a homebuyer must avoid herding behavior by thinking for themself while simultaneously considering how other people might value homes in the future.

The way to walk the middle path is detached observation — recognize the behavior patterns of others without letting it unduly bias your decision-making.

About a month later, we found a home that seemed too good to be true. Ample space, close to public transit, even a view of Puget Sound and the Olympic Mountains. However, the home was 70 years old, so we would need to update the electrical, plumbing, and heating. Since we were renting elsewhere, we could delay moving to get this work done.

Things go wrong after you buy a home. Thinking that these problems won't end up costing you significant time and money is what behavioral economists call optimism bias: the tendency to overestimate the likelihood of favorable outcomes and underestimate the likelihood of unfavorable outcomes. The challenge, then, is to consider the risks and whether they are worth the reward.

As I prepared to make an offer to buy a home, I thought back to the hundreds of homeowners going through foreclosure that I interviewed while interning at the Boston Fed. They experienced bad luck on top of bad luck — deaths, divorces, medical emergencies, job loss, and a global recession. Any of those things could happen to me.

With all the repairs the house needed, I determined the maximum amount I could afford to pay was $950,000. I liked this particular home more than any other home on the market priced below $950,000, so I reasoned that this amount must be my value for the home. But I still had a nagging feeling that I was overextending myself and overpaying.

What if the roof sprang a leak? And what if, because I had already spent my savings repairing the plumbing, electrical, heating, and cooling, I didn't have any money left to repair the roof?

I could have kept going down the list of unlikely catastrophes. Instead, I focused on the unlikeliness of the scenario rather than the pain of the scenario. This helped me get out of my head and back to the task at hand. In economics, expected utility theory hypothesizes that individuals weigh uncertain outcomes according to their likelihood and the net benefit of each outcome. I shuddered at the thought of a bad scenario, like being laid off during a severe recession and housing-market downturn. However, according to expected utility theory, I should weigh that feeling against the likelihood of that scenario, which I reasoned to be a once-in-a-century event. In all likelihood, my job was safe, the economy was fine, and the value of homes would keep going up.

The home was listed at $840,000. I submitted my bid on the home for that amount. When you're deciding whether to bid above or below the asking price, look up how competitive the housing market is in the neighborhood and how the home compares to what else is on the market. If the market is cool, it's advisable to come in low. However, if the market is hot, the seller may completely ignore your offer if it's below the asking price.

Even though I offered $840,000, I was ready to go as high as $940,000. Later that day, my agent called me to deliver the good news: we won the home at list price. No one else even submitted a bid.

Daryl Fairweather is the author of "Hate the Game: Economic Cheat Codes for Life, Love, and Work" and the chief economist of Redfin.

This story is adapted from "Hate the Game: Economic Cheat Codes for Life, Love, and Work" by Daryl Fairweather, to be published by the University of Chicago Press on April 11, 2025. Copyright © 2025 by Daryl Rose Fairweather. Printed by arrangement with the University of Chicago Press.

• Real-estate investors can lower taxes with cost segregation and 179D studies.
• Cost segregation accelerates depreciation, offering significant tax deductions for investors.
• 179D studies can maximize energy-efficient deductions for commercial property owners.

If you own a rental, you can likely lower your taxable income by deducting expenses associated with managing the property.

Business Insider spoke to Kristel Espinosa, a CPA and partner at JLK Rosenberger with expertise in real estate, about tax strategies and deductions that real-estate investors should pay attention to.

Espinosa pointed to two that can help investors minimize taxes on their rental income.

1. Do a cost segregation study to accelerate the depreciation of your property

One major deduction worth strategizing around as a real-estate investor is depreciation, which is the loss of an asset's value.

Investors can claim the value of depreciation as a tax deduction for the entire expected life of the property, which the IRS has determined is 27.5 years for residential buildings and 39 years for commercial buildings. To calculate depreciation on a rental, you divide the value of the property (not including the value of the land) by 27.5 or 39, depending on the property type.

A cost segregation study can help an investor accelerate depreciation by considering all of a building's internal and external components, some of which may qualify for a shorter depreciable life.

"You can now take this huge depreciation deduction instead of having to wait the whole 39 years to get that depreciation," said Espinosa. "You can take a big chunk in those first couple of years and basically put yourself into a loss position because the deduction is so large, and not have to pay any tax — and that loss generally carries over. If you don't need all of the loss in the current year, that loss carries over into subsequent years, so those losses could shelter the rental income from this property for years to come."

A cost segregation study isn't free — it can cost $5,000 to $15,000 — and it can take up to two months, but it could be worth looking into. Espinosa said that it's saved some of her clients over $1 million in taxes.

"I feel like this is often a missed opportunity just because a lot of people don't know about it or maybe they just don't want to pay the fee," she said. "But somebody needs to do that analysis for them and say, 'Hey, this is the fee that you're paying for this cost seg study, but these are your tax savings, so it's up to you if you want to do this or not. Is it beneficial?' And 99% of the time it's going to be a yes."

2. Do a 179D study to maximize the energy deduction

The 179D deduction is for commercial building owners who have certain energy-efficient components.

"A lot of these commercial buildings now, especially in California, are required to be energy efficient to a certain standard," said Espinosa, who is based in Irvine. "But our clients like to go above and beyond that sometimes and put in other energy-efficient structural components within their commercial buildings."

She recommends a 179D study for that type of client. It works similarly to the cost segregation study, in which you hire a specialist to analyze your building and its components.

She said one of her firm's clients recently did a 179D study and "found an easy $400,000 deduction."

"So, it's not a depreciation deduction, but it is a deduction that they're rightfully able to take. It's a federal-only deduction — California does not conform — but still, it saves them dollars, so they may want to look into that a little bit more if the property is an energy-efficient type of property."

The tax savings become more significant if you are a real-estate professional

If you qualify as a "real-estate professional," you could reduce your overall tax liability even more. This status allows you to offset rental against other income.

"Generally, if you're just a regular person like me who has a job as an accountant and is investing in real estate on the side, then the losses that I'm talking about offset the rental income from that property — but I can't take that loss from that rental and offset it with my W-2 income," explained Espinosa.

That's because they're two unrelated activities. However, if she was considered a real estate professional, "it all becomes one big activity," she said. "Those big losses from that cost segregation now can offset the commissions that you earn as a real estate agent or whatever other income you earn in real estate because now it's no longer passive in nature."

Being a real-estate agent automatically deems you a professional, but if you don't have that license, you may qualify if you meet certain requirements, including spending more than 750 hours on real-estate activities.

"I feel like this is an often abused area," noted Espinosa. "You can have other jobs but you just have to be able to show that to the IRS if ever audited that the real-estate business really is your main thing."

She recommends documenting everything, from how you spend your working hours to the mileage you drove to visit properties, even if you aren't a real estate professional: "If you're holding real estate and renting it out and taking deductions on it, you should always document everything and always track your expenses."

If you meet the requirements, "Then, of course, designate yourself as a real-estate professional," she said. "It obviously has huge benefits. But then also be aware that this is a highly scrutinized area by the IRS too, so that's why you want to have your documentation in place."

Cambridge, Massachusetts, may seem like an unlikely site for a YIMBY revolution.

The historic Boston suburb is home to both Harvard University and a bevy of affluent homeowners opposed to any new development. The city even features prominently in the book "Neighborhood Defenders," a seminal work about anti-building, not-in-my-backyarders. Despite all that, the city recently passed a series of laws that could pave the way for a cascade of new housing construction.

Cambridge could certainly use the new units. Data from Zillow shows the city's average rent is $3,400 a month — slightly higher than San Francisco's estimated average rent of $3,200. Homelessness in Cambridge has also been on the rise, particularly since the pandemic. In an attempt to ease this pressure, pro-housing groups that fall under the YIMBY umbrella (short for "yes in my backyard") — particularly the local group A Better Cambridge and the statewide organization Abundant Housing Massachusetts — have been trying to get more homes built in Cambridge for years.

In recent years, that work has started to bear fruit: The city enacted a 100% affordable housing overlay in 2020, which allows developers of below-market-rate apartment complexes to build more densely than would be permitted under base zoning. Three years later, Cambridge rezoned its Central Square neighborhood, allowing apartment buildings to rise up to 18 stories high.

But the latest measure is perhaps the most radical, and most promising. A measure passed in February will legalize the production of four-story apartment buildings across the entire city, with some larger lots zoned for up to six stories. Sure, these newly possible buildings aren't quite as dramatic as an 18-story tower, but this latest change is by far Cambridge's most ambitious. Unlike the geographically confined Central Square upzoning, the newest pro-housing ordinance has the potential to remake the entire city. The city's planning staff estimate that the new law may increase Cambridge's housing development capacity over the next 15 years from 350 units to 3,590 — a more than tenfold increase.

The likelihood that some neighborhoods will become denser has provoked the usual opposition from local homeowners. But viewed from another angle, this densification could make the city a more vibrant and beautiful place to live. There's a reason the Cambridge city councilmember Burhan Azeem has called the city's new plan "Paris-style zoning." As it turns out, Paris is a good model for midsize American cities to follow. By allowing more European-style construction, places like Cambridge can both lower housing costs and look good doing it.

Alongside the Eiffel Tower and the Arc de Triomphe, one of Paris' most iconic architectural hallmarks may be its most ubiquitous: the Haussmann-style building. Georges-Eugène Haussmann (better known as Baron Haussmann) was the famed urban planner who, under Emperor Napoleon III, redesigned central Paris in the mid-19th century. Paris became a city of wide boulevards and midrise apartment complexes with distinctive limestone facades — the aforementioned Haussmann buildings. Thanks in no small part to the prevalence of these structures, Paris has achieved a density higher than any other major city in Europe or the United States — although the city of lights still struggles to keep up with demand for housing.

While Haussmann buildings are specific to central Paris, plenty of other European cities have equivalent structures: four- to six-story apartment blocks with no buffer area between the front door and the sidewalk. Unlike the boxy, cheap-looking American five-over-one apartment building that has come to dominate much of our development — and which many people regard as an eyesore — Euro-style apartments generally contribute to the beauty and charm of dense, walkable tourist destinations like Stockholm and Rome. Plus, they're more efficient: thanks to European building codes and zoning rules, European-style apartment buildings can be built for less, on smaller lots, and with more family-friendly apartments in the interior.

"Sure," you might say, "but what's good for Paris, Stockholm, and Rome won't work in an American context." That's a common refrain from skeptics — citing cultural differences, the need for abundant parking, or their own gut instincts — when YIMBYs propose allowing more European-style zoning in the United States. But these assumptions are incorrect for two reasons.

First, upzoning cities like Cambridge is not the same thing as requiring them to build up to Parisian density. If you own a single-family home in Cambridge, and your lot has been upzoned to allow for the construction of a four-story building, you remain at liberty to keep your single-family home. If you want to redevelop the property into a multifamily building, that's great; if you decide to sell your home to a developer who will replace it with an apartment complex, that's great, too. But nobody is compelling you to do either of those things if you like your existing home.

Second, Cambridge — like many other older cities in New England and the mid-Atlantic region — already has a fair number of dense apartment buildings and townhomes. Rather than destroying the culture or character of these cities, building more Parisian-style housing would signal a return to the pre-single-family era. Many of Cambridge's mid-rise apartment buildings were constructed before single-family zoning became ubiquitous in the United States in the early 20th century. And the ones that have survived are now highly coveted as luxury homes and architectural treasures; yet, for decades, it has been effectively illegal to build more of them. As Azeem wrote on X, Cambridge's previous, single-family-focused zoning laws meant that "85%+ of the existing housing" in the city would be illegal to build. In other words, Cambridge's upzoning may actually help to preserve the city's architectural heritage and New England character. At the same time, it is a model for how other cities can upzone in a manner that actually eases housing costs.

While the patchwork nature of American land-use policy can slow progress in important ways, it can also be an engine for experimentation and friendly, productive competition. Pro-housing activists in cities across the country — in places like Minneapolis, Austin, and Sacramento — and far beyond, in the case of Auckland, New Zealand, have inspired each another, shared insights and tactics, and provided a push to see who can push through the most ambitious land-use overhauls. These pushes can even get a little cheeky: YIMBY advocates in Montana sold zoning changes by urging conservative lawmakers to move away from "California-style zoning." While it will take some years to assess the full impact of these revisions, the early data from places like Auckland is very promising.

Some changes make a bigger impact than others. One lesson from the past few years of YIMBY experimentation is that smaller tweaks to local zoning codes may yield negligible results; ambition is vastly superior to cautious incrementalism. Take Minneapolis, one of the recent YIMBY success stories. Citywide, the production of more housing has helped to keep rents and home prices in check, but as the housing researcher Zakary Yudhisthu has found, there's more going on underneath the hood. The parts of Minneapolis that moved from single-family to duplex or triplex zoning have seen little housing growth, while the corridors that allow for denser construction have seen more permit applications. In other words, going just a few steps further is how you get real results.

But to truly unlock housing production at the necessary scale, high-cost cities cannot stop at upzoning. They also need to reshape permitting rules and other onerous building requirements, such as off-street parking mandates. True European-style zoning would allow for mid-rise apartment buildings with no off-street parking and a single central staircase. (Five-over-ones exist in part because most American cities require multiple staircases in any apartment building over a certain height.)

So while other expensive cities should take inspiration from Cambridge, they should also see if they can go even further. There's still plenty of room for another jurisdiction to take the lead in the race to be America's YIMBY-est city. Any takers?

Ned Resnikoff is an urban policy consultant and writer. He is a fellow at the Roosevelt Institute and is currently working on a book about cities with an expected publication date of Fall 2026.

• In the early 2000s, artist Michael Townsend spotted an unused corridor inside a Rhode Island mall.
• Townsend and other artist friends moved into the space as a protest of the city's gentrification.
• Four years later, security guards discovered the hideout, which is the subject of a new documentary.

In the early 2000s, Adriana Valdez Young heard a radio commercial for the brand-new Providence Place mall, a then-groundbreaking development built to draw luxury shoppers to Rhode Island's capital.

In the ad, a woman breathlessly fawned over the shopping center, exclaiming she wished she could live there since it had everything she could ever need.

"I just had this idea: Oh, we should live in the mall," Valdez Young, an artist, said in a new documentary.

That idea grew into a four-year adventure spearheaded by Valdez Young and her then-husband Michael Townsend, also an artist. Slowly, their group of friends moved cinder blocks, a sofa, a dining table, rugs, and a PlayStation console into a hidden hallway deep within the mall's maze-like system of underground corridors and emergency exits.

The hideaway — and the art the group created there over four years — is documented in director Jeremy Workman's latest film, "Secret Mall Apartment," now screening in Providence and New York City. The film will have a wider release in Los Angeles and additional cities in April.

Local artists saw the secret apartment as a protest against a changing city

In the 1980s and 1990s, city officials were determined to revitalize Providence's downtown to make it a destination, and not just a stop on the way to other major cities like New York City and Boston.

The Providence Place mall was designed to be an economic engine, with higher-end department stores like Lord & Taylor and Nordstrom and its own movie theater.

When the mall finally opened in 1999, it prompted real-estate developers to reconsider building other new projects in surrounding areas. One target was the nearby abandoned factory known as Fort Thunder, which served as a performance space, playhouse, and artists' lofts.

Fort Thunder was demolished to make way for a planned strip mall and grocery store, which angered members of the creative community who felt steamrolled by the process.

"There was no effort to bring people along," Valdez Young said in the documentary.

The apartment was peaceful and felt like a television set

Providence Place Mall has a unique design. With a river cutting through the center and rounded edges to accommodate nearby interstate I-95, its odd floor plan created the perfect hidden alcove.

"The building has a bunch of weird interesting shapes. The space we discovered was really a negative space in between two planes of the building," Colin Bliss, one of the artists who helped build the apartment, said in the film.

The group of friends accessed the secret apartment in two ways. First, they could shimmy between open spaces within a stairwell in the parking garage.

Second, they could get to their hideout from inside the mall through a series of emergency exits and hidden hallways. Footage in the film shows the group letting the exit alarms blare until they eventually turn off while sneaking items into the space.

Over the years, the group bought an antique china cabinet, a sectional sofa, a glass-top dining table, and other domestic wares from the Salvation Army and snuck them into Providence Place. Sometimes they would make a purchase from the food court so they would have a receipt in case they were stopped.

The apartment even had its own waffle maker.

"It made you feel really relaxed," Valdez Young said in the documentary. "It's a little prison-like, because there's this cement wall and no natural light, and you could be discovered at any moment. There was this weird sense of freedom."

Mall security guards eventually foiled the artists

The group mostly used the apartment as a meeting space to brainstorm and plan various art projects, including custom installations in children's hospitals and a New York City portrait project honoring 9/11 victims.

They may have slept overnight there, but many of the artists said in the film that they also had other homes at the time.

After four years, the group started to suspect mall staff were onto them. Various items from the apartment, like photo albums and the Playstation console, went missing.

The group believed security guards had found the apartment and were using it as their own hangout when the artists weren't around. They decided to only visit the apartment after hours to avoid getting caught.

One day, Townsend broke the rule because he wanted to show the hideaway to a friend who was visiting from out of town. During their visit, security broke in and caught Townsend and his friend. He was banned from the mall for life and the apartment was permanently sealed.

The ban, however, has apparently been lifted. Townsend recently attended screenings of the "Secret Mall Apartment" documentary at Providence Place itself, according to local newspaper The Providence Journal.

• Champion boxer Floyd Mayweather Jr. said he purchased a 62-building Manhattan apartment portfolio.
• But there is no evidence there has been a sale.
• The deal is one of several claims Mayweather has made about his real estate that appear exaggerated.

Floyd "Money" Mayweather Jr. earned his nickname by reaping more than a billion dollars during an illustrious boxing career and spending big on designer clothing, palatial homes, and ultra-exotic sportscars.

More recently, the 48-year-old retired champion has sought to refashion himself as a budding business mogul, with interests in liquor, nutritional supplements, apparel, and, increasingly, commercial real estate.

In late February, Mayweather announced his biggest single deal to date, the purchase of a sprawling portfolio of 62 rental apartment buildings in upper Manhattan.

"All the buildings belong to me, I don't have no partners," Mayweather proclaimed in a video posted on his Instagram account that also included a slideshow of him touring some of the buildings. "And all the retail down below, on my buildings, all belong to me. Guess what? You can do the same. It's all about making power moves."

Mayweather posted that his real estate investment firm, Vada Properties, paid $402 million for the properties.

Yet the boxer's bold claims do not appear to match reality. A month after Mayweather's announcement, none of the buildings have changed hands, according to New York City property records, which are usually updated within days of a sale, several experts said. A deal to sell the properties outright to Mayweather does not seem imminent.

The NYC Housing Partnership, a non-profit group that is a partner in a majority of the properties to help them qualify for tax breaks and grants and preserve the affordability of the portfolio's apartments, said through a spokesman that it has not been alerted of a pending sale.

"The Housing Partnership has not been advised of any sale, pending sale, or change in ownership," the spokesman said. "Generally, the partnership would be advised of the transfer and would be party to the transfer. That has not occurred."

A person directly involved in the deal with Mayweather said that Mayweather had purchased a small minority ownership interest in the portfolio, with options to expand that stake over time or acquire the buildings in their entirety. It is not clear if Mayweather will exercise those options. The person asked to remain anonymous to speak about a confidential arrangement with Mayweather.

"Floyd Mayweather continues to be a reliable partner and a great ambassador for affordable housing," a spokesman for Black Spruce Management, the real estate company that owns the majority of the buildings in the portfolio, said in a statement. "To date, Mayweather has performed on all of his obligations."

Meyer Orbach, the chief executive of the Orbach Group, a firm that owns the remaining handful of buildings in the portfolio, according to public records, did not respond to multiple calls and emails.

Asked about acquisition, Ayal Frist, the CEO of Vada Properties, Mayweather's property firm, patched in a man during a telephone call who introduced himself as James McNair, an executive involved in Mayweather's business ventures.

The man's voice, however, was starkly different from existing recordings of McNair.

The person insisted that Mayweather had acquired the portfolio, but declined to discuss details of the transaction on the record. He said that Mayweather had lived in affordable housing as a child and had been drawn to the properties, in part, because they include rent-regulated apartments.

"He felt that it's so cool because: I give back to the community and I make money," the person said. "And once that clicked in his head, he is like, I want to buy it all."

McNair did not respond to calls and text messages.

Lawyers for Mayweather did not respond to requests for comment.

From boxing to New York City skyscrapers

The deal is one of several large real estate investments that Mayweather has touted.

A chance encounter more than a decade ago appears to have helped Mayweather make some high-placed connections in commercial real estate.

At a Knicks game, Mayweather happened to sit next to Jeff Sutton, a major owner of Manhattan retail space, and Andrew Mathias, who was then a senior executive at the large commercial landlord SL Green. The men hit it off and developed a friendship, according to two people who were present at that introduction. Both wound up counseling Mayweather on real estate investments.

In a podcast interview in 2022, Mayweather said that, during his boxing career, with the help of his former manager Al Haymon and "my Jewish friends and my white friends," he initially invested $5 million in commercial real estate and began to net $50,000 a month in proceeds — an impressive 12% return on his money.

He suggested during that interview that he held a stake in One Vanderbilt, a 1,400-foot-tall Manhattan office tower controlled by SL Green.

"I'm a part of that project," Mayweather said, adding incorrectly that the skyscraper is "the tallest building in New York City."

The man who spoke to Business Insider claiming to be James McNair said that Mayweather had invested $88 million into roughly 20 loans that SL Green had originated and that were tied to commercial properties in the city. He said the company lent the money out as mezzanine debt, a type of higher interest rate loan sometimes used in real estate investments.

"It was a nice opportunity for them to make money for Floyd, who they have a great deal of respect for," the person said. "And at the same time, it was also a good marketing opportunity for SL Green to be associated with him."

Alexendra Zarchy, a spokeswoman for SL Green, said in an email: "We don't comment on questions regarding individual investors."

SL Green hasn't disclosed investments with Mayweather in public filings. The company, which is public, typically announces large deals involving the sale of ownership stakes in its assets.

During an investor call in December 2014, Marc Holliday, SL Green's CEO, introduced Mayweather as "somebody who's been a big fan of the company, probably own some shares," according to a transcript of the call by AlphaSense.

"You're the right team, SL Green," Mayweather responded.

Mayweather also recently claimed to have invested an undisclosed sum into 601W Companies, an owner of office assets, according to a report. A call to a senior 601W executive was not returned.

He announced last year that he had purchased a stake in a portfolio of luxury rental apartments owned by Black Spruce Management and the Orbach Group — the owners of the uptown Manhattan portfolio.

On his property website, Mayweather lists 1196 Avenue of the Americas among his holdings. Ownership of the building, a three story property in Manhattan's Diamond District that is filled with retail tenants in the jewelry business, also has not been sold, according to property records.

"That hasn't closed yet," the man who claimed to be McNair said.

A close associate with a checkered past

Mayweather has credited another executive — one with a less reputable past — with propelling his business career.

"A close friend of mine, Jona Rechnitz, a great guy, great person, helped me a lot," Mayweather said during a recent interview on Fox News to promote a new sports supplement line.

Rechnitz pleaded guilty and served as a government witness in a federal criminal corruption case against Norman Seabrook, then the head of the Correction Officers' Benevolent Association, a union that represents jail guards in New York City.

Rechnitz admitted to delivering a bribe to Seabrook, who then placed $20 million in correction officers' pension money he controlled into a hedge fund managed by a friend of Rechnitz's. Nineteen million dollars in funds were later lost in the investment. Rechnitz was ordered in federal court to pay restitution to the union and has given back about $1.2 million dollars, according to his attorney. Seabrook was convicted in 2019 and sentenced to 58 months in prison. He served less than two years before being released.

Rechnitz's sentencing was vacated in 2023 when an appeals court found that the judge in the case had had a conflict of interest. He is due to be resentenced in June.

• A cruise ship is being transformed into luxury residences at sea.
• The Navigator, originally built in 1999, will undergo a multimillion-dollar renovation.
• Condos on the ship will cost upward of $750,000, and residents will have access to butlers.

A two-decades-old cruise ship is undergoing a multimillion-dollar renovation to become a floating residential community for the ultrawealthy.

Regent Seven Sea Cruises' Navigator is set to become the first ship of the Crescent Seas fleet. Crescent Seas announced in an Instagram post that the ship is scheduled to set sail on December 31, 2026, following a $70 million renovation.

Originally constructed in 1999, the Navigator underwent a major refurbishment in 2016. In its current form, it has eight decks, 248 suites, a pool, and a putting green.

After the refurbishment, it will feature 210 private residences, offering buyers the chance to purchase homes and live on board as it travels the globe.

Russell Galbut, the cofounder of real estate development firm Crescent Heights, which launched Crescent Seas, told Bloomberg that the price of homes on the ship will range from $750,000 to $8 million.

He said owners will pay maintenance fees starting at $210,000 a year, which will cover butler service, meals, housekeeping, and access to Starlink internet.

Sales of the luxury residences are set to begin on April 9 this year.

A spokesperson for Regent confirmed in an email to Business Insider that the Seven Seas Navigator will leave its fleet on October 14, 2026, as part of the terms of a new long-term agreement with Crescent Seas.

The ship's final voyage under Regent is scheduled to depart on October 2 next year, from Turkey to Egypt.

They added that guests whose trips are canceled due to the agreement will receive a full refund.

Galbut told Bloomberg that Crescent Seas is negotiating with three other ships and is in talks to commission a new vessel as part of long-term plans to develop more options for residential living at sea.

The company's website said the design firms MAWD, Lissoni & Partners, and Journey will lead the Navigator's redesign.

Luxury residential cruise ships already exist, including the Villa Vie Residences, where villas on board start at $129,999, and The World, where condos cost between $2 million and $15 million each.

The World is equipped with a large spa, a tennis court, and personalized concierge services.

Peter Antonucci, who lived on The World for six years, told BI last year that it is like the "Four Seasons on Steroids."

• My husband and I decided to relocate from Melbourne to Bright, Australia, three years ago.
• We own our home in Melbourne and decided not to sell it.
• Renting it out to tenants and finding a rental in Bright offers us flexibility.

Three years ago, my family moved from Melbourne to Bright, Australia. We'd lived in Melbourne for eight years and were ready for a change.

One night in October 2021, my husband put an idea on the table. He asked if I wanted to turn over a new leaf and move to Bright, where his family was based. We'd already vacationed there plenty of times, and I'd enjoyed it, so I said, "Sure, let's do it." Soon, we were planning our escape from Melbourne.

We decided not to sell our home in Melbourne when we moved

We'd been living in the home we'd bought together for four years, and though we were ready to leave Melbourne, I had reservations about selling. We also didn't want to buy in Bright because I didn't know whether I'd enjoy living in such a small town. I suggested we spend a year there and then reassess after that.

The first major hurdle we faced was finding a place to live. Though small, Bright is a popular tourist destination known for its wineries, hiking, and gold rush history. It's surrounded by beautiful mountains and is a short drive from Mount Hotham, a popular ski resort. Rental properties in the area are in short supply, but we were lucky enough to find accommodation at a friend's place while they were overseas for the year. We relocated at the end of January 2022 and rented out our home in Melbourne to tenants.

Our family quickly fell in love with the slower pace of country life. Later that year, in August, we welcomed our third child to the family.

Renting in Bright means we have more flexibility

As a growing family, we needed our own space, so in January 2023, we moved into a simple three-bedroom house conveniently close to town. Then, last October, we found our current rental home — a beautiful three-bedroom, two-bath property in a green, family-friendly part of Bright.

My favorite thing about the property is the big back garden. Birds love it, too, and pink galahs and crimson rosellas visit every day. There are three small vegetable plots where we grow tomatoes and strawberries, and my children spend hours outdoors in nature.

Financially, renting where we want to live and owning a property elsewhere has been a good decision. Our rent each week is less than our weekly mortgage repayment (which is pretty much covered by the tenants), so we are essentially saving money.

Renting also means we can move freely and live where we can't afford to buy. Bright is much more expensive than Melbourne, and the median house price is over $1 million. We get to live here while paying off our mortgage in Melbourne, and that's a big drawcard.

We might not rent forever, but it works for us for now

Sometimes, my husband feels guilty about the kids not having a "proper" family home. They've never owned a pet because it's easier to get a rental property without one, and that makes me sad. Our son is 9 years old, and he's lived in six different houses, which is not ideal. But I try to think of it as a positive — it certainly keeps life interesting!

While my husband and I don't want to rent forever, for the time being, it's working well for us. When the market in Melbourne picks up, we may decide to sell our property there and buy one in Bright. But renting has definitely given us options.

• There are a variety of ways to invest in real estate beyond buying rentals.
• Investors are using private money lending, build-to-rent, and syndication to build wealth.
• Private money lending and syndication are relatively hands-off while offering good returns.

One of the most straightforward ways to get into real estate is to buy and hold a rental. Another popular strategy is flipping properties.

However, there are multiple ways to invest in real estate.

Business Insider has spoken with investors who are using less traditional strategies to hit financial independence. Here are three.

1. Private money lending. If you want to participate in the real estate space without actually buying and managing properties, one option is lending capital to other investors.

It's one strategy that financially independent couple Carl and Mindy Jensen are using to continue to grow their net worth. Having spent years buying property and doing time-consuming "live-in flips," they appreciate how passive lending can be.

The way it works is they'll lend other real-estate investors' money to rehab a house, for example, and earn interest on the loan. The terms are determined by the lender and borrower and vary from deal to deal. The Jensens said that they're earning between 10 and 12% from lending.

"The private lending generates such a nice return that it's difficult to be like, 'No, we don't want to have the easy money. Let's go do another live-in flip,'" Mindy told BI.

2. Build-to-rent. Brannon Potts likes the idea of owning rentals but has found it challenging to make the numbers work in his area: "The resale market is a little bit harder to pencil out and work financially."

His solution is to build his rentals. He admitted that the strategy is "a little more niche," and time-consuming. He's designing the layout and working with a builder to bring it to life — a process that can take up to nine months for a multi-family property. "But I'm seeing a lot more financial reward from it at this moment than doing the resale side."

As of March 2025, Potts has 10 completed doors and said he's averaging $330 a month per door. That's about $40,000 a year of relatively passive income, as his properties are new builds and don't require much maintenance or attention. He expects to hit financial independence once he gets to 20 doors, which he plans to do in the next five years and before turning 60.

He's earning more than just financial reward.

"I love building — to be able to put my fingerprint on a property," he said. "I really wanted to be proud of what we did so that our tenants got something wonderful that they could live in and hopefully take better care of it because it's just a little bit nicer than the ordinary."

3. Real-estate syndication. With real-estate syndication deals, a group of investors pools their capital to purchase a single property managed by the syndicator.

New England-based investor and self-made millionaire Tess Waresmith owns rentals, but she started investing in syndications in 2023 and says the strategy comes with unique advantages: It opens the door to bigger investment opportunities and is much more passive than managing rentals.

"I check out the deal and make sure it's something that feels good to me, and then when I invest the money, I'm hands-off," she said. "I'm not involved in the day-to-day decision-making of the property. But as an investor, I get to benefit from investing in the larger unit properties."

The Jensens, who are in two syndication deals, also appreciate the hands-off nature, but it can be difficult to predict your returns.

"The people running these syndications will tell you they're expecting numbers, and it's infrequently accurate," said Carl. Keep in mind that the syndicator is "probably using their best, sunny-day scenarios."

That said, "every syndication we've had has actually outperformed the original numbers."

• My wife and I moved from Florida to Medellín, Colombia, where we could afford a life of luxury.
• I had a private chef, a cleaner, and a personal trainer; I also had great healthcare.
• Now that we are back in the US, I can't justify the costs anymore.

I was born, raised, and spent most of my life in Milwaukee. I married and had three children with my first wife there.

After vacationing in Maui, Hawaii, in my 30s, my wife and I decided to move there in 2014. We fell in love with the island and its slow pace of life. I stayed for two years but ended up getting divorced; I moved back home to the mainland.

In 2018, I started dating a friend, Cindy, who I would marry. We dated long-distance at first because she lived in Florida. After all three of my children graduated from high school, I moved to Florida to be with her. My kids liked visiting their dad in a warm climate.

Eventually, Cindy and I decided to sell everything and travel full-time, but we quickly got sick of traveling to a new country every month. That's when we decided to settle down once more in Colombia.

I decided we should move to Medellín, Colombia

Medellín is a popular destination for expats and digital nomads. I enjoyed my previous visits to Medellín. I knew my wife and I could have a good quality of life there.

I knew Colombia has great healthcare and a lower cost of living than the US, so I decided to make it our home to recover from constant travel.

I applied for and received a two-year student visa to study Spanish. Cindy was still traveling between Colombia and visiting family in the US, so she had a tourist visa.

We got to Medellín in June 2022 and got to work on setting up our lives.

I lived in the best part of Medellín, the Golden Mile in Poblado, and optimized my life. The Golden Mile is a great area because it's walkable to everything one needs. I secured a beautiful two-bedroom, two-bath apartment in a fancy building in Poblado.

Two malls, with many restaurants, were within a 10-minute walking distance. American brands such as Starbucks are also nearby. My language school was also located there.

I lived a life of luxury for less in Colombia

I hired a cook, cleaner, and personal trainer to come to the apartment daily. These professionals freed up my time to focus on building my business and getting healthier.

I had great healthcare in Colombia and used it frequently with no copays. While there, I had some issues related to a vasectomy and needed to go to the hospital. The stay, procedure, and doctor's visit didn't cost me anything out of pocket.

I also used Rappi — a cross between Uber Eats, Amazon, and an errand service — almost daily. You can order food, get medicine from the pharmacy, have groceries delivered, have Rappi run errands for you, and even get cash delivered. It's an all-in-one app that made me never want to leave my apartment.

In Colombia, I had all the comforts of a wealthy life without the high costs, and I didn't have to hustle to earn those comforts.

My wife and I moved back to Florida in 2024 to be near our grandkids

After two years in Colombia, my wife and I returned to the US for our families. We are back to paying a large amount for rent, so I can't afford any of the comforts I could before. I can't imagine how much it would cost to hire professionals.

We're in the process of leaving the country for good because I can't justify living in the US anymore. I can't keep lying to myself about paying the always-increasing cost of living, and I'm afraid a medical emergency while in the US will bankrupt us.

Life abroad offers us a better quality of life and saves us money. We can save, invest, and work toward our goal of financial freedom without sacrificing our quality of life.

• A small Nebraska city with less than 900 residents has unveiled an incentive for newcomers.
• Pawnee City is offering $50,000 in down payment assistance to qualified new residents.
• Officials hope that the payments to help people buy newly built homes spark a "rural renaissance."

Fans of "Parks and Recreation" can finally live out their dreams of living in Pawnee — sort of.

Pawnee City, Nebraska, which is about 90 minutes south of Lincoln, Nebraska, and two hours north of Kansa City, Missouri, is offering $50,000 to new residents who qualify.

Between March 14, when the program was announced, and March 27, 115 people have applied, Pawnee City Chamber of Commerce official Aaron Sawyer told Business Insider.

The city's plan, dubbed Vision 2030, starts with a commitment to build 25 new single-family homes on currently empty lots. Plans on the Vision 2030 website show ranch-style homes with three bedrooms, two bathrooms, two-car garages, and spacious backyards priced at $325,000. (The average home value in Pawnee City is $102,705, according to Zillow.)

The program's $50,000 payouts will go toward down payment assistance for buyers of the new houses.

Applications are open to families, single professionals, or retirees. Qualified homebuyers must make less than certain income caps, which range from $69,450 for a one-person household to $115,100 for a six-person household.

Interested homebuyers must complete an application form that asks for their current employers, monthly incomes, and household sizes.

In November 2024, workers broke ground on the first home, which is expected to be ready for move-in by this summer, according to the Vision 2030 website.

Remote work can be a source of tension between employers and their workers, with Amazon and J.P. Morgan calling employees back to the office five days a week five years after their initial COVID-19 shutdowns. But for those who still have the flexibility, the opportunity to move somewhere with a financial incentive can be enticing in today's expensive housing market, where older homes may cost just as much as new builds.

Pawnee City is dreaming of a 'rural renaissance'

The down-payment assistance initiative is part of Pawnee City's effort to spark a "rural renaissance" that could rejuvenate the town, according to the Vision 2030 website.

Its population has dwindled. Pawnee City has 865 residents, according to the most recent data available from the US Census.The city has experienced a 50-year decline from a population high of 1,280 residents, according to the civic group Pawnee Bold.

For such a small place, Pawnee City has still produced several notable figures, including the first governor of Nebraska, David Butler; vintage Hollywood star Irish McCalla; and famous comedian Larry the Cable Guy.

"It's a great place to grow up and raise kids," said Sawyer, who has ties to the city through his grandparents. Pawnee City has its own school, hospital, two parks, and a brand-new amphitheater that just opened last year, he added, which is notable for a town of its size.

This summer's amphitheater programming will include a polka band, a rock concert, and a screening of "Cars" that features a visit from the hometown hero himself: Larry the Cable Guy.