California to end the COVID state of

PRODUCTIVITY, AND LOWER COSTS

Another innovative firm in Silicon Valley called Entekra is focused on off-site framing. It is on a mission to increase home building productivity and reduce the time and the costs it takes to build a single unit.

Stick-built framing for a typical 2,500-square-foot house would generally take about five workers and 15 days to complete, but with the firm’s Fully Integrated Off-Site Solution and a crane, the framing can be done in just four days by a crew of four people. Effectively, this reduces prices by $25,000, saves an average of 30+days, and increases overall productivity by more than 500 percent. In addition, this system reduces errors and reduces on-site skilled labor needs.

Regarding multi-family units, another company- FullStake Modular in New York, merges modular housing with new construction technologies to bring a higher level of control, predictability, and scalability to multifamily development. This is the same company that built the modules for 461 Dean Street in Brooklyn, New York, which is the tallest modular building in the world.

CREATIVE FINANCING

Financing is one of many people’s biggest hurdles to homeownership. To that effect, Rhino, a company located in New York, partners with building owners in all 50 states to offer low-cost insurance as an alternative to cash security deposits. When a renter inquires about a unit and says Rhino is an option, they can choose between low-cost insurance or a traditional security deposit. The transaction is made directly with the renter. The renter will receive information about the premium immediately, and then they can decide whether to pay the premium in lieu of a security deposit. Although the cost of insurance varies, it ranges between $4-7/monthly.

In addition, it is important to highlight that several companies have developed several approaches to help future buyers. One of the most popular approaches is crowdfunding to seek investors. A good example is HomeFundIt in Baltimore, an online crowdfunding platform allowing homebuyers to use gifts from family and friends for home payments. Still as a crowdfunding platform but using a different approach, Small Change in Pittsburgh connects investors with developers to build better cities . As long as you are 18+ Small Change allows you to invest in projects that involve affordable housing, community centric projects, transit oriented projects and any project that essentially makes better places for everyone.

Additionally, one of the markets that we have to look at and carefully consider is the renter’s market. These are the people getting groomed to become buyers and availing financial assistance and removing barriers to financing, especially for the minorities and the people with lower incomes is essential to ensure housing affordability. A tech company called Till, located in Alexandria, Virginia has set a platform that transforms a renter’s ability to pay, stay and thrive in their homes through realtime data to develop payment solutions to address their needs.

What Till offers is personalized structures that reduce the avoidable costs of delinquency and evictions. Understanding that the biggest costs that many renters face is rent payment , Till helps to drive meaningful improvements across a renter’s entire financial landscape.

It is also estimated that less than 1 percent of credit reports include rent, yet, for many people, it is their largest and most consistent payment. In light of this, another tech company, ESUSU in New York offers the renters data reporting services that includes rents as a factor of credit scores. The company builds the reports for clients by partnering with property managers and public housing authorities or even working directly with landlords. By using rent payments to establish creditworthiness, ESUSU significantly lowers the cost of capital for renters who want to become buyers.

Housing affordability is not a oneoff problem that can be solved by a blanket solution. However, it is a problem to keep talking about the problem and not offering any real practical solutions. Focusing on ways to solve the problem through innovation, it will be possible to come up with multiple marvelous and creative solutions focused at the grassroot level.