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March 15, 2010
The Asset Building Potential of Shared Equity Homeownership
In this paper for the New America Foundation, we review the literature on homeownership as an asset building strategy for lower income households. We then present a real world case study, examining wealth building and household mobility among buyers of 424 resale-restricted, owner-occupied houses and condominiums developed by the Champlain Housing Trust (CHT) in Burlington, Vermont between 1988 and 2008. We conclude by comparing the asset building potential of shared equity homeownership to the rewards and risks associated with other strategies for helping lower income families to accumulate assets and build wealth.[More]
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March 12, 2010
Center for American Progress: A Path to Homeownership
Homeownership continues to provide real social and economic benefits and remains a high priority for most American families, but the United States is experiencing significant declines in the ownership rate for the first time in decades. What we need is greater availability of targeted purchase assistance programs that address wealth barriers to homeownership.[More]
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September 05, 2009
Hemet considers new ways to boost housing
Community land trusts are nonprofit, community-based housing organizations that acquire land through purchases or donations and hold it in perpetuity, said Rick Jacobus, an Oakland-based consultant hired to look into forming the land.[More]Posted by Rick Jacobus | Comments (0)
March 04, 2008
Asset Building and Affordable Homeownership
Homeownership has historically offered the best asset building strategy available to middle class american families. But homeownership has changed and is no longer available to many moderate income households. Local government programs that seek to make ownership affordable however frequently choose to limit the price that homeowners can sell for in order to preserve affordability for future buyers. But affordability protections are sometimes opposed by those who want to encourage homeowner wealth building. These debates are really about the very purpose of affordable homeownership programs. This 15 minute video presentation looks more closely at local affordable homeownership programs from the point of view of asset building. Can affordable ownership programs be seen as asset building strategies? How do they compare with traditional ownership?[More]
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October 29, 2007
Best Practices in Administration and Oversight of Inclusionary Housing
This paper outlines some of the challanges of ongoing administration of Inclusionary housing programs and highlights the policies, procedures and systems that successful programs have been using to address these challanges. The paper identifies common approaches to staffing these programs over time including partnerships with local consultants or nonprofit organizations and looks at scalable revenue sources to support the ongoing costs of administration. [More]
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September 15, 2007
Inclusionary Housing Production Study
Affordable By Choice:Trends in California Inclusionary Housing Programs was commissioned by the Nonprofit Housing Association of Northern California, The California Coalition for Rural Housing, The San Diego Housing Federation and the Sacramento Housing Alliance. The report details the findings of a statewide survey of local government agencies that have adopted inclusionary housing policies. [More]
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September 14, 2007
Understanding Subsidy Retention
This animated presentation was designed to help policymakers understand the economics of permanently affordable homeownership. The key to understanding the growing homeownership affordability challenge is the relative rates of change of housing prices and incomes. I found that this idea was difficult to explain verbally but was easy for people to understand with the help of simple drawings.
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August 12, 2007
Resale Formula Comparison Tool
This general purpose educational tool was designed to help community leaders understand the relative performance of different limited equity resale formulas. So much of what sets one model apart from the other is dependant on the assumptions you make about interest rates, home price inflation and income growth. This tool allows a side-by-side comparison between several models, and allows you to change these input assumptions and immediately see changes in the relative performance of each of the models in terms of both ongoing affordability and equity building for homeowners. [More]
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July 02, 2007
Shelterforce: CLTs and City Government
 | This article from Shelterforce Magazine outlines the growing trend of municipal sponsorship of Community Land Trusts including profiles of new CLTs in Irvine, CA and Chicago. |
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April 28, 2007
Preservation of Affordable Homeownership
 | This paper published by the National Housing Conference's Center for Housing Policy describes the continuum of approaches to perservation of affordability in affordable homeownership programs and outlines some of the advantages and disadvantages of each approach. |
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Shared Equity, Transformative Wealth
 | This paper published by the National Housing Conference's Center for Housing Policy examines common shared equity homeownership models. The paper argues that well designed programs can generate life altering wealth for homeowners while also preserving affordability of housing for future generations. |
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June 27, 2005
Community Land Trusts for Permanently Affordable Homeownership
Written for local elected officials and housing program administrators, this chapter explains how Community Land Trusts operate and places them within a continuum of other policy alternatives.[More]Posted by Rick Jacobus | Comments (0)
Beyond Lender Bias: The Struggle for Capital in a Networked Economy
There is no doubt that information technology has brought about huge changes in world financial markets. Markets which used to be largely isolated are now inextricably interconnected by a real time network of transactions in which, generally, capital flows instantly...[More]Posted by Rick Jacobus | Comments (0)
June 18, 2005
Financing Deed Restricted Housing
One of the challanges of developing affordable homeownership is that every financing source has its own requirements related to resale price restrictions and they do not all fit together easily. This workshop provided an overview of several of the most common sources of financing available to developers of permanently affordable homeownership in California including Fannie Mae, FHA, California Housing Finance Agency, CalHOME and the Federal HOME program.[More]Posted by Rick Jacobus | Comments (0)
Preserving Affordability in Inclusionary Housing Programs
This half day workshop was offered as part of a training series organized by the Nonprofit Housing Association of Northern California for local housing activists working toward local inclusionary housing ordinances. The goal was to give participants an opportunity to discuss and think about the social objectives of affordable homeownership programs and specifically about the tradeoffs between wealth creation and preservation of affordability in inclusionary programs.[More]Posted by Rick Jacobus | Comments (0)
