THE NORMAL REAL ESTATE AGENT CAREER TRACK doesn’t include developing affordable housing or helping low-income buyers find homes. Elena’s does. She went from successful agent to managing policy for Homewise, a company that helps challenged buyers afford a place to live. Why the career change? It’s simple, she says: My mom always told me, ‘Elena, don’t forget – you have to do good for the people!’ I guess it stuck.
How does Homewise help low-income families buy homes?
There are a lot of barriers to ownership right now, including the fact that the median home price in Santa Fe is now over $600,000.
So we start at the beginning.
Our Home Ownership Teams work with folks who aren’t yet able to buy a home and teach them how to get in a position so they can. We not only teach families how to manage and start saving money, but we also show the real value and power of paying off even small amounts of consumer debt so they can afford a house payment. Basically, we teach them about finances, A-Z. Then when they’re ready, we help them with a mortgage. It’s a very personal relationship; the loans are through us – we don’t sell them off to someone. Which turns out to be a really good business model. Where else can you go house hunting and a have whole team of people supporting you, beginning to end? And it works. Our delinquency rates are less than 2%, a fraction of what normal loans see.
The truth is that owning a home is about pride, stability, community – but for most families, it’s also the single biggest, best way to build wealth. So, on a larger scale, we’re focused on closing the racial home ownership gap in Santa Fe and Albuquerque, which, in turn, closes the racial wealth gap.
For Santa Fe, especially, the pressing question is: How can we help locals stay in Santa Fe? In a recent study we did, we saw that almost 35% of people who work in Santa Fe can’t afford to live there. They’re commuting, so their carbon footprint is exploding as they drive an hour and a half every day.
Homewise also works in communities.
Yes, we’ve expanded into helping and building communities. Our Albuquerque office is in the historic neighborhood of Barelas, the oldest in town. We renovated an old Vaudeville building in the heart of the arts district and began an ongoing dialogue with the neighborhood residents around these questions: What can we do to make a healthier neighborhood? What makes a better, stronger place for us all to live?
With that info, we started an acquisition rehab program. After these community talks, I began thinking, Why can’t we do more than help people buy a home? Why can’t we help the neighborhood on a deeper level? So, at their urging, we started fixing up vacant, problem homes.
So we buy them, fix them up, and then help residents of the neighborhood – who are renting – buy them and put down roots. With most of the families we serve, their house payment turns out to be less than what they were paying in rent. It stays pretty constant over time and doesn’t spike up and up like rent can. Over time, they’re paying their loan off, so they’re building wealth and assets through home ownership. It’s also a really good anti-displacement strategy when the community owns their homes. We’ve done about 22 homes in this neighborhood.
In Santa Fe, the most exciting thing is our vision for the development of a new subdivision – again, all based on talking to the community and finding out what they wanted. Turns out people liked smaller units and live/work units, so the design is all informed by that. It’s amazing what you learn when you listen.
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