Announcement shared by Lauren Self, Founder at Roots Homes (source).

 

Today, I am thrilled to share that Roots Homes has raised $2.2mm. The round was led by Other Ventures, with participation from Waveline VC, Behind Genius Ventures, CapitalX, and the founders of Bloomtech, Boom Supersonic, Morning Brew, Pill Pack, Thumbtack, and Wander, among others.

 

The objective is to solve the most daunting problems in homeownership: accessibility and flexibility.

 

These problems are deeply personal to me. How we got here is fundamental to who I am and what I fight for. What follows is the story of how my family lost my childhood home, which led me to start Roots so others don’t experience a similar loss.

 

My two parents—young and in love—did everything they could to give their kids the American Dream. In 1997, they scraped together all of their pennies to move to the part of town where their kids would receive the best education. With the help of a bank offering a mortgage that seemed attractive at the time, they had just enough to buy a home – a whole entire house – on a cul-de-sac even!

 

That house was our home, and our home was everything to us. The neighboring families became an extension of our own. Parents grilled in the yard on weekends while kids rode bikes or had water balloon fights. Life was so good. Until it suddenly wasn’t.

 

When the economy bottomed during the Great Financial Crisis of 2007-2009, our family’s adjustable-rate mortgage peaked, and our payments skyrocketed. The mortgage that seemed so attractive at the time ended up utterly devastating our family. No matter how my parents added up the numbers, there was simply no way we could afford our skyrocketing monthly payment. We had no way out.

 

No freedom.

 

No flexibility.

 

No way to preserve the nest egg my parents worked and saved so very hard to build.

 

No way to retain financial hope for our family’s future.

 

The bank foreclosed on our home.

 

Tears streaming down my face, I wrote a note on the wall inside my closet to whoever might live in my room next. “My name is Lauren and I loved living here, but now we have to move. Please take care of it.”

 

Amidst all the tears, we packed up and moved into a cold, unfamiliar rental.

 

Owning a home was supposed to help my parents secure our family’s future. We had everything, until we had nothing. How could the American Dream so quickly turn into an American Nightmare?

 

Losing your home as a child rocks your world. The most important thing for children is stability, and this was the opposite. Having personally experienced the problems Americans face in becoming homeowners, I set out to fix them. Fighting the status quo wouldn’t be enough – I have to make something so much better that it renders the existing system irrelevant. Roots was born.

 

Owning a home is essential to building wealth in America. But, the all-or-nothing nature of today’s homeownership (the type of homeownership that my parents fought for – and lost to) offers little room for error. A brief encounter with bad luck – either your own or that affecting the economy – can result in losing it all. Isn’t the American Dream predicated on freedom? Where’s the freedom in all-or-nothing homeownership? Americans need flexibility within ownership, and that’s what we offer at Roots.

 

In 2022, Roots set out to establish a new type of homeownership – one predicated on freedom and flexibility above all else. We call it fractional homeownership. And so far, it’s working. We’re helping families just like my own access the American Dream of home ownership. Here’s how it works:

 

– Roots helps you find the perfect home, and when you do, we buy it for you.

– Each month, you’ll buy more of your home from Roots.

– If you ever want to buy the whole home from Roots, you can, but you never have to.

 

As a fractional owner, the home equity you build is yours to keep – even if you decide to move.

 

Had my parents embarked upon their American Dream with Roots, a change in economic circumstances would have meant the freedom to downsize without losing it all.

 

Roots will make fractional homeownership the gold standard in how we live – to level the economic playing field for the middle class – and to prevent others from living the loss I did.

 

Just two months into operations, it’s clear that Roots Members are thrilled, exclaiming things like, “We are living proof that dreams come true.” One member said, “The ability to move in with no down payment and to have the option to purchase later is a game changer for us. It gives us the freedom to truly test drive the house and make sure it is the right fit for us before committing to a long-term mortgage. If you are looking for a new home, I can’t recommend Roots enough.”

 

In this great country of possibility, it’s time to create real access to the American Dream. Americans need flexibility, and Roots is bringing it to them, one fractional homeowner at a time.

 

This story, while candid, fails to acknowledge the crucial role played by my brilliant co-founder in bringing Roots to life. Thank you, Sam. Building this with you is the most fun I’ve ever had in my whole entire life!