Ogden Partners With Company That Helps Essential Workers Purchase Homes

OGDEN, Utah – Buying a home just got easier for government employees and educators living in Ogden.

Ogden City and Ogden School District have partnered with Landed, a financial company that has helped essential employees afford homes in high cost housing market areas like San Francisco and Boston.

It’s not a loan program, but rather a shared equity program. Gov. Spencer Cox has pushed for cities to enact programs like this one, which helps secure down payments for essential workers.

According to landed.com, the program helps potential homeowners reach a 20% downpayment. Landed contributes up to 15% of the purchase price on the downpayment. Those homeowners then become partners in the payment program, and they have 30 years to end the partnership by paying Landed the initial contribution plus or minus a portion of the home’s change in value.

Landed then makes a return on the investment when the participants either sell the home or buy out the investment.

The program is specifically for people in specific school districts, universities, health care systems and municipalities.

It is a critical time in Utah as the cost of living continues to rise. At the same time, there is a teacher shortage – and a big reason for that is pay, according to district officials.

The new launch with Landed will offer opportunities to retain teachers.

Landed works with essential employees to make it possible for them to buy a home in the communities where they serve.

Cox during a press briefing Tuesday said Utah is a great place to live, but it leads to problems like housing affordability.

“Over the last 6 years, we have seen the largest increase in housing prices in our state’s history,” he said. “This is a growth that is unsustainable. Right now in the state there are less than 2,000 homes for sale. I don’t know how to put that into perspective except to say that normally this time of year we would have 20,000 – 30,000 homes for sale. And we have less than 2,000. That tells you what’s happening.”

As of  Tuesday, all employees of Ogden City, Ogden School District and Roy City employees will have access to up to $120,000 in shared equity down payment support.

Ivory homes is also part of this program.