Trump’s ex-chief usher secures $100 million for home equity-sharing fund

Tomasz Piskorski, a real estate finance professor at Columbia Business School, sees this as a good business opportunity.

“From Wall Street’s perspective, it’s an enormous amount of home equity that is illiquid that they might help households access,” Piskorski told Bloomberg. “Even if you get just a small portion of this, it’s a pretty substantial business opportunity.”

The program allows buyers to partner with an investor for a larger down payment, resulting in a smaller, more affordable mortgage. The investor, in turn, shares in the property’s future appreciation.

“GEL is building a marketplace that will enable homebuyers to finance their house using both equity and debt,” the company said in a statement. “This process will result in responsible and sustainable homeownership while reducing debt and providing significant affordability for homebuyers.”

After obtaining a mortgage from an approved lender, the homeowner and Generational Equity would enter into a shared-equity agreement, with the firm’s real estate fund paying its portion of the purchase price at closing. Investors can buy and sell shares in the fund that holds the home-equity stakes through Generational Equity’s technology platform.