Rethinking land contracts as a tool for transforming the small-dollar housing market

Articles

Homes in Black-majority neighborhoods are chronically devalued. 

It’s a kind of Catch-22, compounding structural problems many Black buyers face in the housing market: instead of making those homes affordable and obtainable, low valuation only serves to make financing for them less accessible and more exploitive. As of 2015, 14% of single-family homes (643,000 homes) were in the $10,000… Read More
Feb 2, 2022

Caveat emptor

Redlining, the federal government’s practice of refusing to insure mortgages in or near Black neighborhoods, dictated where Black people could or couldn’t buy a home. And even long after the 1968 Fair Housing Act made it illegal to discriminate against homebuyers on the basis of race or national origin, lender… Read More
Feb 2, 2022

Making land contracts work for buyers

She is senior program director for state and local policy for Detroit with Enterprise Community Partners, Inc., and co-author of the “In Good Faith” report. Enterprise is a national nonprofit which creates and invests in affordable homes, provides resident services, supports community organizations on the ground, and conducts policy advocacy. Read More
Feb 2, 2022

Building a secondary market for land contracts

Some community development organizations combine both approaches, selling supportive five- to seven-year land contracts, then working with buyers and banks to convert them to mortgages after two to five years. “Some people think that’s a pretty interesting untapped market,” Zwiebach says, “and they have heard from banks that they’re interested… Read More
Feb 2, 2022
Load more