We're looking for entrepreneurs with bold ideas for more affordable, equitable and sustainable housing. Starting today, the application is open for the Housing Venture Lab: a 9-month accelerator program for innovative housing ventures.
Selected for-profit and non-profit ventures get:
💵 $75,000 in seed funding
🎯 In-depth coaching with an expert matched each venture’s needs
💡 Insight from experts in state and national policy
🔗 Connection to a network of advisors and partners
🌟 New opportunities for follow-on funding
Learn more and apply by February 20: https://ow.ly/oYG550Y0Pe3
📚 THE EDUCATIONAL SERIES: Appraisal Insights
Learn about how Jillian, the founder of Appraisal Insights, builds tools for mitigating errors in appraisals and creates a pathway to fairer valuations of homes.\
Visit Appraisal Insights' website at:
Home appraisals are meant to be neutral assessments of a home’s estimated fair market value. But a report from the Brookings Institute found that homes in majority-Black neighborhoods are valued at 23% less than comparable homes in other neighborhoods. Over time, this amounts to a significant devaluation of assets: $156 billion in cumulative losses.
As an appraiser, Jillian White witnessed these errors firsthand - and saw how difficult it was for the average person to fight them. She founded Appraisal Insights, a member of the 2024 Housing Venture Lab cohort, to educate regulators, build tools for mitigating error, and create a pathway to recourse for homeowners who want a second, fairer valuation of their homes.
Learn how Jillian combined deep expertise and personal experience to change the appraisal industry for the better.
📚 THE EDUCATIONAL SERIES: ROC USA
ROC USA is working to transform manufactured home communities across the country, putting power in the hands of residents.💡
Visit ROC USA’s website at
Since 2008, ROC USA has been working with residents of manufactured home communities to collectively buy the land they live on. To date, they’ve converted 321 communities to resident-owned cooperatives.
Now they’re working to accelerate their impact with a new subsidiary, Integrity Community Solutions. Through the 2024 Housing Venture Lab, the ICS team worked to develop creative approaches for raising equity to purchase portfolios of multiple manufactured home communities, which they hold until residents are ready to purchase.
Learn more about how ROC USA and Integrity Community Solutions are working to transform manufactured home communities across the country, putting power in the hands of residents:
📚 THE EDUCATIONAL SERIES: LadderUp Housing
LadderUp Housing builds equity for future generations of working-class Midwesterners. Swipe to learn more about their mission to bridge wealth gaps and make homeownership a reality. 🏡
Visit LadderUp's website at .
Meet @ladderuphousing , a recent graduate of the Housing Venture Lab.
LadderUp Housing co-founders Tom and Greg Voutsos want to do more than help people buy homes: they want to bridge wealth gaps and build equity for future generations of working class Midwesterners.
As the brothers prepared to launch the Toledo-based company, their research suggested that barriers to homeownership could be overcome with creative solutions. They set about addressing these barriers by buying older, low-cost homes, taking on the repairs themselves, then renting the homes to prospective homeowners and offering in-depth financial coaching. Renters then had the option to purchase their homes at the initial price.
“We’re very humbled by how hardworking our tenants are,” says Tom. “I think it’s emblematic of the character of Toledo and the Midwest that people are excited to work towards homeownership.”
The Housing Venture Lab offered LadderUp Housing an opportunity to explore alternative funding models and connected the founders with leaders from across the housing industry.
Watch to hear from homeowners Jasmine and Briana about how LadderUp Housing helped them buy their homes:
📚 THE EDUCATIONAL SERIES: BuildCasa
BuildCasa turns new laws into new housing. Swipe to learn more about their mission to make the American Dream an affordable and accessible reality for all. 🏗
Visit BuildCasa's website at .
Meet BuildCasa, a member of our recently graduated 2024 Housing Venture Lab cohort. 🏡
BuildCasa’s founders, Ben Bear and Paul Steidl, aim to create more homeownership opportunities by building housing in existing neighborhoods. Paul’s experience growing up in a close-knit Pittsburgh neighborhood helped inform the founders’ vision for dense, walkable, mixed-income communities.
A 2021 California law (SB9) opened up a pathway for making this vision a reality by allowing homeowners to split their lots and build homes on the resulting new parcels. BuildCasa now has 100 units approved or under construction across the state, and a new $750,000 investment from the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative will support the creation of additional homes for low-income first-time homeowners.
Through the Housing Venture Lab, BuildCasa has worked to refine their business model and fundraising strategy and respond to a changing policy landscape. Watch to learn more about how BuildCasa works to expand housing access in California neighborhoods.
What have Housing Venture Lab alumni been up to lately?
🏘️ @modulehousing (2022 cohort) announced their first multifamily development in Richmond, Virginia
🏆 ROC USA (2024) was awarded $38 million through HUD’s PRICE program
📈 As of this year, @padsplit (2020)’s co-living model has housed more than 40,000 residents
🔗 @housingconnector (2023) secured $2.1 million in funding to bring their model to Austin, Texas
🎉 Trust Neighborhoods (2021) received two-year grants of $700,000 from the Marguerite Casey Foundation and $500,000 from the Melville Charitable Trust
📣 @thekelseymore 's (2022) second disability-forward housing community was featured in the San Francisco Chronicle
🔨 @buildcasa (2024) was named as one of Business Insider’s 20 Hottest Proptech Startups
💫 @myesusu (2020) co-founder and CEO Wemimo Abbey spoke on Financial Freestyle with Ross Mac about thriving as a “Black unicorn” in the startup world
Don't miss the opportunity to join this community of mission-driven housing innovators. The Housing Venture Lab application, including our new Ideas Fellowship, is open now. Apply at the link in our bio or at: ow.ly/q7mB50UXaJC
This year we’re launching a new offering as part of the Housing Venture Lab: The Ideas Fellowship, which will support two idea-stage founders in moving from concept to completed pilot. Fellows receive:
⭐ $75,000 seed grant to support working on their ideas full time
⭐ Coaching from a dedicated expert in policy or business strategy
⭐ Additional programming and access to the full Terner Labs network
If you have an innovative idea for housing affordability, equity or sustainability, learn more and apply at the link in our bio.
We’re thrilled to announce that applications for the 2025 Housing Venture Lab and our new Ideas Fellowship are open now through February 24, 2025! 💡
Learn more about who we're looking for and how to apply at the link in our bio or at: ow.ly/Nz8g50UOUSf
