14 May Shared Equity: Keeping Homeownership Within Reach
Shared Equity Homeownership
Shared Equity: Keeping Homeownership Within Reach
A conversation with Ariane Kissam about how VHCB’s Shared Equity Homeownership program helps more Vermonters buy homes, preserves affordability for future buyers, and supports the state’s broader housing goals.
For many Vermonters, homeownership can feel increasingly out of reach. Rising home prices, low inventory, and a long-standing shortage of affordable homes have made it harder for households to find a foothold in the market. That is part of why VHCB’s Shared Equity Homeownership program matters: it helps lower the upfront cost of buying a home while ensuring that same home remains affordable for the next buyer as well.
Through grants administered with nonprofit partners across the state, the program creates a path to ownership that is both immediate and lasting.
Few people know that work more deeply than Ariane Kissam, VHCB’s Homeownership Programs Manager. Ariane recently marked her 20th anniversary on VHCB’s housing team. Over the course of her career, she has participated in more than 2,000 shared equity transactions, helping shape one of Vermont’s most durable models for permanently affordable homeownership.
In the last year alone, the program has seen a record number of shared equity transactions across both new homes and resales, reflecting both the growing demand for affordable homeownership and the strength of the model.
Colleagues across the state describe Ariane as a deeply experienced housing professional, and as someone who brings real heart to the work. That combination of expertise and care has made her a trusted guide for partners, communities, and homebuyers navigating the shared equity process. We sat down with Ariane to talk about how the program works, who it serves, and why shared equity remains such an important tool in Vermont’s housing landscape.
How Shared Equity Works
You’ve been with VHCB for 20 years and have seen this work up close. For people who are new to it, what is the Shared Equity Homeownership program, and why does VHCB see it as such an important tool?
AK: Shared equity is such an important tool because it opens the door to homeownership for more Vermonters while also making sure those homes stay affordable for future buyers. For a lot of households, the biggest barriers are coming up with enough money for a downpayment and finding a home they can actually afford in today’s market. This program helps address both. It provides a significant downpayment grant that lowers the effective purchase price of the home and helps meet lender requirements for a mortgage.
What makes it especially powerful is that the subsidy stays with the home, so when it’s sold again, it helps keep that home affordable for the next buyer too.
Who the Program Supports
Who is this program designed to support, and what kinds of Vermonters does it help reach homeownership who might otherwise be priced out?
AK: The program supports Vermonters in communities across the state. When we look at the people buying homes through shared equity, we see a wide range of occupations represented. Many are working in social and public services, healthcare, education, the trades, manufacturing, administration, and sales and marketing. These are people who are essential to their communities, but who are often priced out of the traditional homeownership market.
How It Works in Practice
How does the program actually work in practice: from the initial grant to what a buyer contributes, and how the home stays affordable for the next owner?
AK: It starts with the homebuyer working with a regional nonprofit partner to make sure they meet the program’s income requirements, and with a lender to qualify for a mortgage. From there, they may purchase a newly constructed home through Habitat for Humanity, which includes a sweat equity component, or a home developed by a nonprofit partner. They may also be able to use a buyer-driven grant to purchase a home on the open market.
In each case, grant funds are built into the home to reduce the amount the buyer must borrow, which helps make the home affordable both for that household and future buyers. The homeowner does still need to contribute toward closing costs, but the grant serves as the downpayment for loan requirements.
When the homeowner is ready to sell, they work with the nonprofit partner to market the home. At resale, the seller receives the value of the principal they’ve paid down, 25% of any market appreciation, and the value of approved capital improvements they’ve made to the home.
“It allows many households to access homeownership who would not otherwise be able to enter the market.”
From Homebuyer to Statewide Impact
When people hear “shared equity,” they may wonder what that means for the homeowner. How do you explain the tradeoff between limiting resale profit and creating a permanently affordable home?
AK: For many households, shared equity makes homeownership possible in the first place. Without it, they may not be able to enter the market at all. That access creates stability, and over time it also allows homeowners to build equity by paying down their mortgage each month.
A lot of the households who participate are early in their careers, so their income may grow while they own the home. Because their housing costs are more stable, they may be able to save for home improvements, for their children’s education, or for retirement. And they’re not on their own after they buy. The nonprofit housing partner remains a resource, whether that means financial counseling, help accessing rehab loans, or support when it’s time to sell the home.
VHCB provides the funding for this work through partner organizations across the state that work directly with homebuyers. Can you talk about the role those partners play and why that network is so important to making shared equity homeownership work in Vermont?
AK: The nonprofit housing partners are really central to making the program work. They work directly with homebuyers at every stage of the process — from homebuyer education and credit counseling to lender referrals, the closing process, and explaining the shared equity model and restrictions. They help qualify buyers for the program and guide them through what can be a complicated path to homeownership.
Their role doesn’t end at closing, either. They also provide long-term stewardship, which can include helping homeowners maintain their homes, offering financial counseling if needed, and assisting with the resale process when the homeowner is ready to move on. Because these organizations know their communities so well and are deeply invested in local residents’ success, they’re essential partners in keeping the program strong.
“Many households can buy a home through this program for around the same amount of money they had been spending on rent.”
Vermont’s Bigger Housing Goals
Stepping back, how does Shared Equity Homeownership help Vermont move toward its bigger housing goals, especially at a time when the state needs more affordable homes and more pathways into ownership?
AK: We can’t control how much home prices have risen, but what shared equity does give us is a growing supply of homes that we know will remain affordable over time. That matters. The program helps create stability and opportunities for wealth-building for families who might not otherwise be able to buy a home, and it ensures that the number of permanently affordable homes continues to grow.
For many households, buying through the program can mean paying roughly what they had been paying in rent, but with the added stability and benefits of ownership. It also helps create more income diversity in higher-cost neighborhoods and supports more lasting access to those communities for a broader range of Vermonters.
Learn More About Shared Equity Homeownership
Shared Equity Homeownership helps turn public investment into long-term opportunity — making homeownership more affordable for today’s buyers while preserving that affordability for the future. For Vermonters looking for a path into homeownership, shared equity offers more than financial assistance: it offers a durable model for keeping that opportunity within reach.
To learn more about how the program works, who it supports, and where to find homebuyer resources, visit VHCB’s Shared Equity Homeownership program and explore Homebuyer Resources.