The family of the Starter Home announced their passing at 90 years old of completely predicted and foreseeable causes. The Starter Home is survived by luxury condos, second and vacation homes, single-family rentals, and cash-only offers on 4,000 square foot McMansions. The Starter Home was born in 1934 when Congress created the Federal Housing Administration (FHA). For the next 20 years, FHA helped military veterans, low-income, and handicapped Americans find their first home. The Starter Home was a 2-3 bedroom, 1-1.5 baths house that came in a few styles including craftsmen, ranch and kit. Enough for a “couple of decent rooms and a bath” as quoted by George Bailey and idealized in Frank Capra’s It’s a Wonderful Life.
In fact, the ideal was a reality for many Americans. The Starter Home helped millions of people move from rental apartments to homeownership, enabling family formation, economic mobility and community stability. Families in Starter Home are known to buy pizza on Fridays, pet food for numerous pets, house paint and wallpaper at the local hardware store, soft serve ice cream on Summer evenings and copious amounts of Halloween/Valentine’s/Christmas/Easter candy.
The Starter Home is responsible for social and economic outcomes. Where you live is a data-driven predictor of opportunity. The Starter Home was the key indicator of prosperity- for better and worse - in communities across our country. One of Starter Home’s early contributions was addressing housing instability. After World War 2, returning veterans were offered federal legislation to identify and obtain the Starter Home. Even then, with wide federal support, many veterans - particularly black and Indigenous veterans - were systematically blocked from finding Starter Home. Or these veterans needed to redefine Starter Home and what it means to them. That’s one of the first times Starter Home evolved.
Later, Starter Home became a point of social pride, growing larger and newer. Builders built Starter Homes all across the Sun Belt and South. For a time, the Starter Home represented the first mile marker on the road to success and generational wealth. Home equity increases beginning with the Starter Home propelled several generations of Americans to comfortable lives and retirements. The Starter Home remained even as owners move out and moved up to larger homes further into the suburbs. Soon, though, new highways and infrastructure investments followed those homeowners to their new communities leaving the Starter Home behind. New first-time home buyers stepped up and stepped in to the Starter Home; however instead of propelling generational wealth, the new Starter Home cost more and was not so new anymore. Increased property values meant increased taxes. Maintenance costs only mounted as the Starter Home aged.
Generations of Americans came of homebuying age but the homes remained the same. The Starter Home served first-time homebuyers and eventually renters looking to try to become homeowners someday until 2023 when the Starter Home was diagnosed with terminal economic conditions. The Starter Home will be remembered in a not-so-brief (lip) service by older relatives anytime homeownership comes up around the holidays. The Starter Home leaves behind the American Dream (already passed in 2023) and two offspring - factory-built housing and shared equity ownership models. The next generation will be homeownership in which renters will earn equity on the way to owning a portion of a community, a portion of a home or shares in a co-op/HOA. In lieu of flowers, the Starter Home wishes for donations to be made to a philosophy opposing NIMBYism. The Starter Home was 90 years old.