Housing prices were already too high for many Newark residents. Then the investors came.

Payton Guion

24 September, 2021

Standing on Fairmont Avenue, Vivian Fraser can look in any direction and see a house her organization renovated.

One of those homes is 231 Fairmont, a two-family house in Newark’s West Ward that sold earlier this year for $240,000 — well below market value, even though it has four bedrooms, stone countertops and upgraded appliances. A large picture window looks east from the living room toward downtown.

Fraser’s organization, the Urban League of Essex County, paid $118,000 for the house and another $280,000 to fix it up. The group did similar projects on the two houses north of 231 and four others on the block. It is set to develop 28 houses a few streets over next year as part of a larger mixed-use project.

The Urban League is one of many groups working to maintain a supply of affordable housing in Newark, a city where home prices and rents easily outstrip most residents’ ability to pay. That disparity has recently led to dire warnings if more affordable housing is not made available. Newark is short more than 16,000 affordable units, according to one report this year from Rutgers University.

And now a new obstacle has emerged.

A red-hot COVID-19 housing market and heavy investor activity has driven up prices to previously inconceivable levels in Brick City.

Fraser said she’s seen more and more investors turning to Newark real estate with eye-opening cash offers, which she said complicates her efforts to develop and preserve affordable housing.

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Housing prices were already too high for many Newark residents. Then the investors came.