HIBT Lab! Landed: Alex Lofton

How I Built This with Guy Raz

Guy Raz | Wondery

Business

4.8 • 31.1K Ratings

🗓️ 11 May 2023

⏱️ 46 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Pricey down payments have put homeownership out of reach for many Americans, especially those who don’t have access to intergenerational wealth. This issue is particularly acute in cities, where the salaries of essential workers like educators, healthcare professionals, and municipal service providers haven’t kept pace with skyrocketing home values.

An introductory finance course got Alex Lofton thinking about his own experience with this issue — and creative ways to address it. In 2015, he and two co-founders launched Landed, a for-profit company that offers down payment assistance in exchange for a share in a home’s eventual appreciation.

This week on How I Built This Lab, Alex talks with Guy about his company’s work to help more Americans build wealth by purchasing homes. Alex also recounts how working for the Obama for America campaign in 2008 influenced his approach to organizational leadership, plus he and Guy discuss the potential consequences of capitalism unchecked.

This episode was produced by Sam Paulson and edited by John Isabella, with music by Ramtin Arablouei. Our audio engineer was Katherine Silva.

You can follow HIBT on Twitter & Instagram, and email us at [email protected].

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Hey, Prime members, you can listen to how I built this early and ad-free on Amazon Music.
0:07.0	Download the app today.
0:09.2	What if the greatest tragedy of your life was just covered up?
0:12.5	I have never seen anything like that before or after.
0:15.7	This is the story of the worst marine-on-marine friendly fire in modern history.
0:20.0	A story kept from the public.
0:21.9	It's like, what did y'all have to hide?
0:24.6	Welcome to NPR's Embedded Podcast in its latest series, Taking Cover.
0:30.7	Welcome to How I Built This Lab.
0:32.1	I'm Guy Rise.
0:33.3	So there are lots of people who want to buy a home and who can afford to pay the mortgage.
0:39.0	The problem is the down payment.
0:41.4	In most cases, you need to have 20% of the purchase price in cash before a bank will lend
0:48.1	you the money for the mortgage.
0:49.6	Well, this is a huge problem for millions of people, especially people who can't go to
0:54.6	mom or dad or who don't have intergenerational wealth.
0:58.6	And in many of those cases, that means people who are not white or people who have solid
1:03.8	middle-class jobs like nurses or teachers or emergency workers and firefighters.
1:09.7	Many of them can't afford to buy homes in the cities where they work.
1:14.1	So Alex Lofton, my guest today, is trying to help fix that.
1:17.8	In 2015, Alex and two friends launched Landed.
1:21.7	It's a company that helps people who do essential work, buy homes, buy helping them with the
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Guy Raz | Wondery, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Guy Raz | Wondery and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.