Research

Shared equity housing creates lasting affordability, builds wealth for people with limited incomes and helps create vibrant and inclusive communities. Shared equity programs typically realize these outcomes by limiting the sale or rental price of homes in their portfolios; requiring the sharing of home appreciation gains; and providing homeownership assistance to program residents. Residents and community members often participate in governing shared equity programs through democratic decision-making and/or a cooperative ownership structure. 

Our blueprint serves as a primer to manufactured housing — and a roadmap for community development professionals with the desire to build and scale sustainable programs centered on manufactured housing. 

NeighborWorks America's Housing and Financial Capability Survey shows that most people believe homeownership has benefits but also feel that homeownership is out of reach for them because of their financial situation. Over several years of collecting national data on housing affordability trends and financial preparedness, NeighborWorks has found that the disparity in homeownership between communities of color and white communities continues to grow and the majority of Americans still need help in understanding the homebuying process. 

As part of our efforts to build the capacity of nonprofits to use shared equity and cooperative housing strategies to preserve long-term affordable housing, build wealth for low-income families and promote neighborhood stabilization, we produced this guide to serve as a starting point for organizations and community leaders. We offer a set of guiding questions and considerations that should be noted when exploring the benefits and tradeoffs of pursuing shared equity housing models. 

Innovations in single-family home construction are badly needed. Studies show that every county in the U.S. is facing an affordable housing shortage. Homeownership is increasingly out of reach for many would-be first-time homebuyers, and if younger couples and families can afford to purchase their own home, they increasingly have to wait longer to buy or lower their expectations.

Sam LaTronica, candidate in Urban Planning at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, presented innovative case studies in affordable single-family home construction, including goals, positive outcomes, and lessons learned.

Now housing developers must change their approach to marketing and selling in order to expect good results.NeighborWorks America's Stable Communities Initiative created this guide to:

1. Assist you in developing a marketing and sales plan for your homes
2. Help you train and manage your development and sales team
3. Share templates, examples and resources to aid quick implementation of your plan

Neil Mayer and Associates, together with Experian, conducted a study on the effectiveness of NeighborWorks pre-purchase homeownership counseling and education. Using information from about 75,000 loans originated between October 2007 and September 2009, analyzed the impact of pre-purchase counseling and education, provided by NeighborWorks' network, on the performance of counseled borrowers' mortgages. Overall, the study found clients receiving pre-purchase counseling and education from NeighborWorks organizations are one-third less likely to become 90+ days delinquent over the two years after receiving their loan than are borrowers who do not receive pre-purchase counseling from NeighborWorks organizations.