San Francisco-based startup Landed, founded by two Stanford Business School alumni, is raising money to help teachers afford down payments on homes in their school districts.
Landed splits the down payment on a home with its teacher clients — the teacher typically pays 10 percent of the home’s value, and Landed puts in another 10 percent. That money comes from investors — private institutions, like foundations, which receive equity in the house in exchange for their contribution. When the teacher later sells the house, Landed’s investors get back the 10 percent they put in, plus 25 percent of any appreciation in the home’s value. So far the company, which received $5 million from the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative over the summer, has completed 16 home purchases in the Bay Area.
Landed helped get Maria Robinson, who teaches Spanish at Carlmont High School in Belmont, and her husband, Troy, an engineer, and their two kids out of a crowded, two-bedroom apartment and into a house. The couple makes close to $250,000 a year, enough to pay a mortgage, but they didn’t have the needed $200,000 cash on hand for a down payment on a typical home in the area.
“We wanted our own place,” Maria Robinson said. “We wanted to settle. We wanted to grow roots.”
They found a $1.1 million home in San Carlos, and with Landed contributing about $120,000 to the down payment, were able to move in Oct. 7. The 1,570 square-foot home, which has two bedrooms and a loft, wasn’t a bad deal for San Mateo County, where the median home price was $1.2 million in September, according to CoreLogic.
When they talk about their new house, the couple can’t help but get excited. It has a view of the entire Silicon Valley, Troy Robinson gushed. And it’s within walking distance of his wife’s school.
