The new American Dream may be fractional home-ownership

Future. A handful of startups hope to make your (fractional) home-ownership dreams come true by making down payments actually affordable. While that may sound amazing to some, getting people to buy in and adopt this idea may be easier said than done. It might require a culture shift in primary residence living where people are okay sharing a roof with strangers.

Half bedroom, half bath

According to The Information, a handful of startups are making it possible for people to buy part of a home.

• Pacaso, Alt Casa, and Kocomo sell fractional shares of homes — into as many as eight pieces — where owners are granted access to the property during certain times of the year.
• Arrived Homes and Here sell even more shares of a home, treating properties as investable assets for as little as $100 — what Arrived CEO Ryan Frazier calls “a house IPO.”

In the case of Pacaso and Kocomo, owners can book their time at the property through an app. The companies even switch family photographs between each stay.

Real estate 3.0

Zoe Bernard at The Information believes these startups are bringing about the “Real Estate 3.0” era, which as Pete Flint at venture firm NFX explains, is companies solving the problem of “affordability and accessibility.” I mean, it’s no news to anyone that home prices are currently astronomical.

While they’re currently used for secondary or vacation homes (think of it as a step up from an extended Airbnb stay) these startups believe it could usher in a new type of primary home ownership. But how that would actually work sounds… complicated. The people who own the home would cohabit it with different families, each living in a different area of the house depending on its design. If a home isn’t built for that specific type of living, common spaces (living room, kitchen, etc.) may need to be reserved by owners for use. Like we said, complicated.

In what could be a savior to your savings or a call to action to nip this whole idea in the bud, Alt Casa founder Kelle Snow summed up the thinking with: “Two kids, a white picket fence, and [a] quarter of a house… sounds dreamy.”