Stewardship Standards for Homeownership

Posted by on August 05, 2013

Cornerstone Partnership, with support from the National Community Land Trust Network, will be initiating a new, large-scale, long-term project to develop stewardship standards for the affordable homeownership industry. The goals of our project are 1) to develop standards for best practices by homeownership programs with lasting affordability and 2) to evaluate the feasibility of developing a certification program for the industry.  We need your input!  Please read more about this project and join us at http://affordableownership.org/standards/#join

There are hundreds of variations in programs that offer access to homeownership for working families. Often these programs invest in today’s families, with no provision to recycle this investment for future generations.  But a certain set of programs, known as shared equity homeownership, are designed to  preserve the investment in affordable homeownership over the long term, while balancing the needs of the community and the homebuyer. Under this approach, a government agency or community organization provides assistance so that homebuyers can purchase a home they wouldn’t otherwise be able to afford. In exchange for this assistance, the homebuyer agrees to limit his profit from the home by selling the home at an affordable price to the next buyer or by returning a share of market appreciation to the agency that provided the assistance.

http://affordableownership.org/standards/