Claire Fortier has spent the past three months anxiously checking real estate listings, watching interest rate reports and chatting with Realtors, builders and bankers — but she is neither buying nor selling a house. Instead, our special projects editor has been trying to pin down Richmond’s fast-moving housing market for this, our annual real estate update. With sellers settling, rates surging, buyers rallying and developers digging in, the story has changed as often as for-sale signs go up and come down in neighborhoods around the region. Her experiences reflect those of homeowners — the research, conversations and debates about what’s happening, what will happen and what to do. Our snapshot of today’s market, with advice from experts, a look at the numbers and a list of real estate agents recommended by their peers, begins on Page 86.
It would have been so much easier to plan our real estate coverage if we had just known what was going to happen. That kind of thinking has fueled an interest in tarot for centuries. The colorful, oversized cards have long been arranged in patterns so that insight into the future can be divined from the juxtapositions. In the more modern usage, however, the intriguing illustrations are used more for self-reflection or meditation than magic. Taylor Pilkington’s exploration of the Richmond tarot scene starts on Page 76.
I gained a completely different type of insight from reading Laura Anders Lee’s article about Black businesswomen in Richmond (Page 80). I was appalled that Jenn Braswell, a business owner with a graduate degree, a job and a record of success, was told her husband would need to co-sign a lease, and the feeling was compounded by learning that Black women own just over 1% of businesses in America and struggle to get loans. As Rasheeda Creighton, co-founder of The Jackson Ward Collective Foundation, says, “Opportunities are not equal, and the barriers to access are huge.” Richmond is known as a good city for Black-owned businesses, meaning our 5.9% is twice the national average, but we can — and should — do better.
Also in this issue, we check on the region’s air quality, meet the new director of the Black History Museum & Cultural Center of Virginia, taste a Swedish sandwich cake, try stair running, consider Dark Sky Parks and more. Enjoy!
