Memphis has a homeownership problem that goes far deeper than affordability, according to one local real estate professional who says the majority of renters in the city could actually qualify to buy but simply don’t know it.
According to Ricki Fitzpatrick realtor with Keller Williams Realty, the fact that 55% of Memphis residents rent their homes reflects more than just financial constraints. She says many renters could qualify to buy but remain stuck due to widespread misunderstandings about what it actually takes to become a homeowner.
The biggest barrier, according to Fitzpatrick, isn’t a lack of financial capacity but a lack of accurate information. She says many Memphis residents still assume they need a 20% down payment to buy a home, a misconception that keeps thousands of qualified buyers from realizing they could already enter the market.
Fitzpatrick says she’s witnessed the effects of this misunderstanding in her own transactions. She describes clients who arrived with no funds of their own yet ended up receiving money back at closing because their earnest deposit exceeded their final costs.
A former teacher, Fitzpatrick believes the issue isn’t that the homebuying process is overly complicated – it’s that people aren’t being taught how it works. She argues that purchasing a home is far more straightforward than most expect, and that with proper education, many renters would see how attainable it actually is.
While many potential homeowners remain unaware of their buying power, Fitzpatrick says large outside investors continue to amass significant portions of Memphis’s housing stock. She notes that more than half of local properties are now owned by individuals and entities based in places like California, New York, and Florida.
Fitzpatrick adds that this trend includes hedge funds with sizable portfolios as well as major rental companies – such as Main Street Renewal and similar firms – that have acquired clusters of high-quality homes in multiple neighborhoods.
This dynamic creates what Fitzpatrick sees as a fundamental disconnect: Memphis residents who love their city but don’t own a stake in it, while out-of-state capital accumulates local real estate assets.
The institutional advantage is informational. While individual buyers struggle with basic homeownership concepts, corporate investors have dedicated acquisition teams and clear processes for identifying and purchasing properties.
Fitzpatrick says she regularly receives “emails from institutional like the corporate people who have their own realtors, or acquisition people” who systematically target Memphis properties for their portfolios.
Meanwhile, potential local homeowners remain stuck in what Fitzpatrick describes as an information gap that prevents them from competing for the same properties.
The irony, Fitzpatrick argues, is that Memphis actually has the economic base to sustain far higher levels of homeownership. She points out that many neighborhoods are supported by solid wages, backed by major employers such as Pepsi, FedEx, UPS, and International Paper – with Ford also bringing new jobs to the region.
The city also has “one of the biggest districts in the state” for teachers, another demographic that Fitzpatrick says could qualify for homeownership but often doesn’t pursue it due to misconceptions about the process.
Fitzpatrick’s proposed solution centers on systematic buyer education. Her goal for next year is “to teach as many people as possible” through expanded homebuying seminars designed to bridge the knowledge gap.
“My home buying seminar strategy, like it’s not just to get leads, it’s to really educate people to see that they’re closer than they think they are to their dream of owning a home in Memphis,” she explains.
Whether this educational approach can meaningfully shift Memphis’s homeownership statistics remains to be seen, but Fitzpatrick argues the potential impact extends beyond individual buyers to community wealth-building and local economic stability.
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