Homium, a home equity mortgage lender and securitization platform, announced it launched its tokenized home equity loans on Avalanche (smart contracts platform). To further develop the platform and scale its lending business, Homium raised $10 million in a Series A funding round led by the Sorenson Impact Group and Blizzard, the Avalanche Ecosystem Fund. ATLAS SP Partners, which launched in early February 2023 following Apollo Global’s acquisition of Credit Suisse’s Securitized Products Group, advises Homium.
Homium’s shared appreciation mortgage gives homeowners a unique way to borrow against their home equity without increasing their monthly debt burden. The first loans are now live in Colorado, and the platform aims to expand to several other states. Through the company’s platform and partnership with Securitize, Homium offers a new investable asset to institutional investors through digital securities backed by homeowner equity designed to provide returns based on residential home price appreciation.
Homium’s blockchain-native technology and transparent terms make its home equity offering unique as a product for both homeowners and investors. Rather than paying interest or monthly payments, homeowners commit a portion of their home’s price appreciation, potentially unlocking equity for home improvements, debt consolidation, or passing on to their kids. Investors receive a tokenized asset tracking the price appreciation of a pool of shared appreciation home loans issued in real-time on the Homium platform.
This result is a potentially powerful new financial product that may help free up historically trapped home equity and address housing affordability issues in various scenarios. Shared equity investments like Homium are a way for investors to effectively partner with families and local governments to support homeownership and middle-class wealth creation while reducing housing inequity and displacement.
KEY QUOTES:
“The technical advancements behind Homium are compelling, and we eagerly anticipate witnessing its integration into the residential securitization market.”
- Jay Kim, CEO of ATLAS SP Partners
“The reason we are so passionately committed to Homium is we believe it will play a critical role in the future of attainable housing. It provides a materially lower monthly payment, which keeps more money in the borrower’s pockets, improves their financial position and promotes sustainable home ownership.”
- David Battany, executive vice president, Capital Markets for Guild Mortgage
“Homium is building a valuable new asset class for institutional investors, providing a new source of uncorrelated, inflation protected return in their core portfolios. For the first-time, institutions can invest side-by-side with homeowners, doing well and while doing good.”
- Tommy Mercein, CEO of Homium
“Homeownership is the foundation of financial security for most Americans; it has been, and continues to be, the gateway to the American dream.”
- Jim Sorenson, chairman of the Sorenson Impact Group
“As a social impact investor, we are most enthusiastic about how Homium will help enable more equitable and fair access to capital for economically disadvantaged homeowners.”
- Matt Eldridge, Executive Director of Realize Impact
