Wall Street Is Losing Out to Amateur Buyers in the Housing Slump

Raad Yousif drives his pickup truck past cactuses and sandstone cliffs, hunting for Phoenix’s best real estate bargains. On this December weekday, he pulls into a subdivision of blocky pueblo-inspired town homes from the 1970s, the bare, dusty landscaping evoking the surrounding desert.

The 31-year-old Iraqi immigrant knows the neighborhood well. He got his start in the city as a janitor at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport, just a five-minute drive away. Now his passion is flipping homes. And he’s quite good at it. He figures he made $200,000 buying and selling them in the two-year pandemic-fueled housing boom.