Rethinking Homebuying

Transcript of the video is below

Guys, it’s time to rethink home buying.

Home buying has been done essentially the same way for the last, geez, 15 to 20 years. And here’s one of the things that we noticed: you’re never going to own a home without running power to it. As the cost of power climbs, the cost of homeownership climbs, and affordability is at an all-time low.

Now, as a bank, as a mortgage servicer with people making their payments to us, we saw people adding renewable energy after they moved in. They called us up because they were frustrated or angry. When we looked under the hood, we were like, “Holy cow, look at the waste. Look at the dealer fees. Look at the financing fees. Look at these obscene, crazy commissions.” In an attempt to make their lives better, they actually made their lives more expensive in some ways.

But at that time, we also saw an opportunity for us and for everyone. How do we lower the cost of homeownership? How do we find affordability?

So we created a brand-new program that doesn’t just look at PITI, but looks at PITI plus utilities, because there’s so much money now going to utility companies that it’s eating up housing budgets. Our program allows us to make energy‑efficient improvements in the mortgage at the time of purchase. In doing so, we literally unlock so much buying power in many markets that we lower the cost of their utilities more than we increase their mortgage payment.

When a homebuyer doesn’t have to pay for dealer fees and financing fees and crazy commissions, there’s so much money left over that we’re able to turn that into down payment and closing cost assistance. That’s essentially what we do. We take the waste in utilities, we take the waste that was in renewable‑energy financing, and we package that up and give it to potential homebuyers—unlocking zero down, potentially zero cash to close, and a lower utility bill.

It allows homeowners to not just own their house, but to own their power, with no extra liens and no extra leases.

Look, there are a lot of people out there who would love to buy a home but maybe don’t have the down payment saved up. Or maybe they do have the down payment, but they’re scared because they don’t want to burn through their savings account buying a house. This program unlocks that opportunity for homebuyers. As more people enter the home‑buying market, as demand increases, the value and price of homes increase. We don’t want to see people who can afford the monthly payment of a house sit on the sidelines any longer.

There’s so much waste in the current system that, with Reach and the way we do this together, we’ve been able to turn that into down payment and closing cost assistance—without the crazy geographic overlays or income overlays. We’re really just talking about affordability. How do we fight those rising costs and turn them into buying power?

That’s what our program does when we partner with great companies like Reach. I’m excited to help you guys unlock that opportunity for many Americans to buy a house.