It’s no secret that for many Americans, homeownership is the primary means of building wealth. You put down some cash, secure a loan, buy a home, build equity over time, and eventually sell that home for a profit. But when a residential real estate market is as tight as Denver’s—where the average single-family home price hit almost $630,000 earlier this year—it can be tough for some people, especially first-time buyers, to get in on the action.
“If we want more opportunities for people to pull themselves up and have some semblance of the American dream, we need to reimagine ownership,” says Sarah Wells, sales director of the Co-Own Company. The Denver-based startup—helmed by developer Jason Lewiston—plans to lead that transformation by building and managing cooperative housing developments in the city, the first of which is a project in the Hilltop neighborhood, set to break ground by this fall.
