'I made some yard signs... and it worked:' Small New Orleans community has huge victory against corporate Karen trying to price them out with inflated $1.16 million house flip

Elna McHilderson • Managing Editor

Jul 22, 2023 6:00 PM EDT

It's not too often these days that victory comes to small communities. With extremely wealthy people coming into "niche" neighborhoods because they're "hip," buy a house for cheap, flip it, and then sell it for thousands to millions over any other house's value in that neighborhood, it sure makes you feel like the underdogs really don't have a chance. The thing about these "niche" neighborhoods is that they have families who have lived there for generations. They're "hip" because it's people who work hard and take pride in the home they earned. These neighborhoods are usually a beautiful hodgepodge of artists, blue collar workers, and everything in-between. The neighbors in these small communities are tight because they have to be in an area where dollar signs seem to win over humanity. But not this time!

A recent small town in New Orleans banded together to stop a corporate Karen. This Karen is a house flipper from out of town. She bout her home for under $400k and "flipped it." The neighbors have no problem in that, it was how much this Karen was trying to sell the house for, $1.16 million, that truly felt like a slap to the face of the community. The neighbors, many who have been there for decades would have never been able to afford a home for $1.16 million. Wealthy privilege people think: "What? It brings the value of your house up so you can sell it for more when you move!" But this community bought their homes with the intention of living out the rest of their lives there and if the property taxes go above and beyond anything they can afford, that forces them out of their beloved neighborhood. Because, ya know, sometimes it's about creating a home and a community and not trying to sell, sell, sell...

So, one angry neighbor decided to make some yard signs calling out this corporate Karen. The locals, called "rats", put these signs up all over their neighborhood. It featured two rats, a photo of the house that said "don't buy this house" and then "$1.16 million! Don't price us out of our neighborhood!" The person who made the signs bought the house over a decade ago and her property taxes then were only $900. Today they have already inflated to over $5k. If this house sells for that asking price, she will no longer be able to afford that property tax.

Luckily, the recent update says that the status of the listing was withdrawn! Who knows what that means the corporate Karen will do next, but for now, it is a win for this small but strong community and we are more than happy to celebrate that!

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"These are signs that are all over our neighborhood. Us neighbors banded together and hung them all over the place because someone re did this house and tried to price us out."
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"I made some yard signs because of this house…"
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"…And because of this Karen lady."
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Update:

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"I just wanted to give you a little update on the effectiveness of the signs that all of my neighbors hung in our neighborhood because of this house. Well, guess what? It's withdrawn!"
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Part 2

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