SayLambda

Historic and systemic racism in the housing market has led to gaps in wealth, particularly among Black Americans. These inequities have led to the inability of Black Americans to use home equity as a means to create and transfer generational wealth. Decreasing the wealth gap through access to home equity and reversing the effects of redlining will bring societal transformation and will be a generation-changing opportunity. 

For many Black households, the obstacle to homeownership is saving enough money for the down-payment. The obstacle results in many opting out of the home buying process. We have created a customizable, digital portal to expand access to information on homeownership incentives and other home buyer resources to service their specific situation. There is plenty of knowledge on the internet but most of it is not curated in a way that helps a homebuyer through the process.  SayLambda is a guide for timid, first-time homebuyers who think that homeownership is not for them.

The Black homeownership rate is 43% and the White homeownership rate is 73%, Homeownership has been traditionally one-sided in the US. Black American communities have historically been targeted and destroyed by corporations and the government. Although our community has been resilient, past historic wrong has resulted in a wealth gap that now makes it difficult for Black households to purchase a home.

Of the 8 million Black rental households, 3.5 million want to buy a home every year but never do. They recognize the value of homeownership and understand the tremendous value homeownership has created for other communities, but they feel excluded. Unfortunately, there are less than $300,000 Black first-time homebuyers every year; leaving over 3 million who feel rejected and who often give up. 

These potential home buyers feel excluded because of a lack of trust, a lack of confidence about mortgages, and the belief that they can not afford the down payment. The number one reason given for not buying, despite historical wrongs, is the lack of downpayment. We learned this from deep conversations with our user base, but a report from Urban Institute shows this is true across all communities. Due to perceived down payment barriers, these families often end up self-rejecting from the home buying process.

We were frustrated by how the wealth gap stopped Black households from generating wealth through homeownership.  Although it's not an easy problem, it’s a solvable problem. From our community development work, we knew that there were thousands of organizations providing homeownership incentives to improve communities. We decided to make these incentives as easy to find as it is to shop on Amazon. 

The right solution increases awareness of homeownership incentives, creates a community of potential homebuyers, fosters mentorship, and leverages artificial intelligence to incubate the requalification process.  There are no alternative solutions that provide all these resources for home buyers.  

Our program descriptions are easy to read, tagged by a number of different properties, and fully searchable. In addition, there is no alternative commercial solution that creates a community of consumers. Our community will include leaders and volunteers from a number of agencies, brokerages, lenders, housing counselors, and researchers. There are not any Facebook groups that have industry partners who provide scheduled events and educational workshops.  

Finally, we will use artificial intelligence to redirect users to counselors, lenders, and agents at the appropriate time.  SayLambda leverages artificial intelligence to help buyers find the right home in a way that works for them.

There are eight million Black rental households in the United States. Forty-five percent of them regret renting because they are not building equity, but they often never buy, and end up living with that regret. These potential homebuyers often end up self rejecting from the home buying process, denying themselves and their families the opportunity for generational wealth. The reason they self reject is because they lack confidence about mortgages, they don’t believe they can afford the downpayment, and they have a lack of trust for the industry because of historical wrongs.  The product was designed for 3.5 million Black households who want to buy a home every year, but have self-rejected from the homebuying process. In comparison, there are less than 300,000 Black first-time buyers every year.

We wanted to build a solution that attacks the root of the homeownership gap. We invested considerable time talking to Black households, to make sure we developed a solution that is rooted in conversation with potential users. Our solution was conceived, designed, and developed by a team that has a shared lived experience with those users. In our conversations, we learned that the number one perceived barrier to homeownership is affording the down payment. Our solution is to raise awareness about down payment requirements, and make it easy to find homeownership incentives. Ultimately, we want to build an experience that is as seamless as shopping on Amazon.

Although we have not officially launched, it appears our solution is helping. We have had users thank us because they didn’t realize first-time home buyers could have owned a home 3 years ago. We have had users thank us for identifying incentive programs for people with high income, but limited wealth. 

We are using this pilot period to discover new features that will help our users. Based on conversations and feedback, we have already added features to help users find counselors, community events, other non-profits, and lending partners. When users search for incentives they are signifying an intent to buy, along with doubt that they can make the purchase. We learned that we can, and should, redirect users during that search to counselors in that area. We are hoping we can measure conversion from intent to purchase.

From our conversations, we were also reminded that self rejection (or literally getting rejected) is a lonely process. Our users typically do not tell co-workers, friends, or family. Our solution will eliminate this solitary experience through an online community where prospective purchasers help, encourage and support one another. In the near future, we will implement surveys, powered by gamification, to measure and track user’s growth for uninformed to sophisticated and confident consumers.

We have developed a three-step technical solution. We start with the development of the largest database of homeownership incentives in the country. The incentives are presented to our users in an intuitive and compelling website. After we eliminate the downpayment as the major barrier, we usher users into our online community. Our final step is using artificial intelligence and behavior patterns to redirect users to counselors, lenders, and agents at the appropriate time. 

Our outreach includes engagement with nonprofit affordable housing organizations that are working with clients to help them achieve homeownership. We also target city projects, developers, and real estate agencies to help onboard new users and share information. Our digital marketing includes engagement through Clubhouse, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

Our solution is single-mindedly focused on equitable access to generational wealth creation. It makes resources easy to find, and we are building a community of like-minded individuals with both a shared vision and a shared pain. In addition, after moving into their new homes we will encourage civic engagement and enable communities to plan and control their neighborhoods.

We are at the pilot stage because we have deployed our website as a soft launch. We are currently allowing all users to use it to search for home buying incentives. We have incentives entered for Washington DC, Maryland and Virginia. We will be adding incentives from new states weekly.

For our first few months, we are targeting 3,400 visitors per month. We will convert those visitors to 171 users per month. Once we begin focusing on the community aspect, we will convert those users to 5 buyers per month. After measuring results, we will scale.

Over the next 4 weeks, we will roll out new features. These new features will include functionality allowing the introduction of counselors for home buyers, information on and profiles for other mission-aligned nonprofits, and lender profile pages where Lenders can provide information on their preferred programs. We will focus on community building after the launch.

Our solution is innovative in three ways. We take a modern approach to making information accessible by focusing on the user experience. There are thousands of organizations looking to increase the number of first-time homebuyers through homeownership incentives. They are all operating in silos. We have created one singular user interface to sift through all those opportunities, and we focused on making the opportunities as easy to find as buying a shirt on Amazon.

Beyond information access, we are also innovative because we provide community access. The homebuying process can be a lonely experience, particularly for those who have self-rejected from the market. In addition to connecting these potential homebuyers with counselors, we also create a community space where they can motivate each other.

Finally, we use behavior patterns and artificial intelligence to accelerate the homebuying process by converting prequalification from an passive process into an active process. 

We are currently building our community, and can only measure the people we serve by measuring traffic. As we grow our community we will have the opportunity to have more insightful impact metrics. 

We currently have approximately 2000 site visitors per month. We are targeting 3,400 visitors per month. We will convert that traffic to 171 users per month. We want to convert those users to 5 buyers per month. 

By year 1 we are targeting 26,000 visitors per month.  We will convert the traffic to 1,300 users per month. We will convert those users to 40 buyers per month.

By year 5 we are targeting 234,000 visitors per month.  We will convert the traffic to 11,700 users per month. We will convert those users to 360 buyers per month.

We are presently measuring it by traffic to the database. The next measurement will be conversion to users. After that we will use survey to measure user's confidence, education, and ability to find the rightt homeonership incetnives. We will also measure counselor appointments and attednace, and interaction in the online community. Our ultimate measure will be the number of originations and the number of closings. 

3 full-time

1 part-time

Our organization was started to reduce the effects of the decades-long practice of “redlining”—denying mortgages based on race and not qualifications or creditworthiness. In our current iteration, we are using tech to identify resources and provide a community that reverses the devastation from redlining and increases Black homeownership. 

Our tech approach is based on conversations with potential users. The product was designed, created, and developed by a team with lived experience in the same environment as its users. Every member of the team had similar struggles when trying to become first-time homebuyers. In our role as community developers, we discovered that there were numerous homeownership incentives that only a small group of people were aware of. We have made it our mission to make this information available at scale to potential homebuyers across the nation. 

Our team is a diverse mix of Black and Latin people. We have a shared lived experience with our target users. We are technically savvy with backgrounds in software, volunteer management, and community development. Our approach to building a diverse team creating a diverse vision and refining it with ongoing discussions and investing in the leadership team's education. As we scale, we will focus on metrics and measuring our impact. Our recruiting will also focus on sourcing talent from local historically black colleges and universities.