A New Model for First-Time Home Ownership

You don’t want to miss our interview with Jamie Saunders of Affix Communities! The amount of good being done here is inspiring.

There’s no doubt that you’ll be hearing more about Affix. Their model is redefining homeownership in America.

Now, let’s hear from Jamie!

What are you currently working on?

Affix Communities is creating a more attainable option for first-time home buyers in Colorado. Affix homes are small, and have been meticulously designed to meet the needs of people who are earlier in their careers.

We are working to create two options – buy just the home for around $200,000 and rent the land until you’ve saved up enough to buy it, or buy the home + the land at the same time for around $300,000. We can achieve this pricing via creative land use and prefabrication. We’ve also created a design that makes it easy to lock off part of the home and rent it out on a short-term basis, if you want to earn a little cash on the side.

We are currently working through the engineering process of our prototype, and we are hoping to deliver it by late 2025 or early 2026.

What made you get into this?

I started this project because I worked as an architect for the first seven years of my career, and I was frustrated because it seemed that there weren’t any developers who were listening to the needs of me and my peers (younger Millennials and Gen Z). All the new homes getting built today are either rental apartments, or homes catering to older and wealthier generations, with very few starter home options. I started this project because I sincerely believe there must be a better way to get people into their first home.

What issues does it solve for your clients?

We interviewed over 100 potential home buyers in the 25-34 age bracket, and we started to hear the same problems over and over. Of all the individuals we interviewed, all of them wanted to own a home one day, but many found the down payment to be a major stumbling block. This was a response we expected.

What we didn’t expect to hear was that so many of our peers were interested in using short-term rental services like Airbnb as a “house hack” to offset the cost of ownership. Most interviewees were interested in potentially renting out part of their home, during times when they need a little extra cash.

We found this insight very interesting, so we decided to partner with a prefab home company to create a custom Affix design that allows one bedroom and bathroom in the house to be locked off from the rest of the house, with its own private entrance. The homeowner can stay on the main side of the home, while renting out the “lock off” area.

How is your work different?

Though we have a deep bench of experienced real estate professionals who are mentoring, critiquing and guiding our work, Affix is a young development team, and we are working to create solutions for people our own age. We are really trying to listen to our peers, and find creative solutions that can bring their dreams to life. As of this moment, I’m not getting paid to do this work – I still have a day job, and I push Affix forward on nights and weekends. I’m doing this because I believe it is the right thing to do.

Anything else you’d like to add?

To see our home design and learn more about how our system works, please visit affixcommunities.com. You can also listen to our episode on the Leeds Business Insights podcast (S4E2). 

Why Art of Home supports Affix

Affix is tackling high land costs head-on by finding ways to drive them down—or even remove them entirely from the initial home purchase.

They use truly innovative land-use strategies like duplex and ADU zoning, which allow multiple homeowners to share a single piece of land, as well as ground lease models that separate land ownership from homeownership.

We agree that everyone deserves to call a home their own.

You can find out more about Accessory Dwelling Units in our post on ADUs here.