Housing equity partnership

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A housing equity partnership (HEP) is a partnership in ownership of (equity in) a house. Typically the ownership is split between the resident and some organization or corporation, often a financial institution, with the resident owning at least half of the dwelling. When the house is sold, the institution will receive its share of the selling price. These partnerships were championed by economist Andrew Caplin, Sewin Chan, Joseph Tracy and Charles Freedman in the late 1990s and are very similar to shared-equity plans that have existed for decades in the UK, Europe and the U.S. They are also similar to an earlier proposal produced by Geltner, Miller and Snavely (1995) to develop Home Equity Investment Trusts (HEITs).

As with other shared-equity plans, the idea behind HEPs is that they are a way for people to own their homes who otherwise would be unable to purchase a house without a heavy mortgage.

[edit] External links

Geltner, David M., Norman G. Miller and Jean Snavely. 1995. We Need a Fourth Asset Class: HEITs. Real Estate Finance: 71-81.
Caplin, Andrew (1997). Housing Partnerships: A New Approach to a Market at a Crossroads. MIT Press. ISBN 0-262-03243-0.