Our Mission
For the community, by the community.
CommonLands is working to turn 1 million families into homeowners in the next
five years by creating an accessible and scalable cooperative housing program that provides homeownership for low-income families and vulnerable communities through the use of blockchain.
The Problem
Homeowners are 40 times wealthier than renters.
Over the last fifty years, the barriers to homeownership have increased in tandem with the decline of affordable renting households on the market. As a result, it is becoming increasingly difficult for low-income households and members of vulnerable communities to become homeowners. It is clear that homeownership increases generational wealth; as a result, renting households have drastically less wealth than their home-owning peers.
This is a result of increasing down payments, home prices and lending standards, making the path towards homeownership increasingly difficult with each passing decade. A study conducted by the Urban Institute in 2018 found that affordable down payments, mortgage qualifications, and convenience of rent are the three main reasons renting households do not become homeowners.
In addition, It is difficult enough that the barriers to homeownership force many to rent instead of own a home, but on top of this, the US has now seen an exorbitant increase in house costs, effectively trapping low-income families and vulnerable communities in a never-ending renting cycle.
CommonLands is committed to helping close this wealth gap by providing accessible, affordable housing on a national level to support lower-income families and vulnerable communities that currently face economic or social barriers to homeownership.