Home Center franchised offices are real estate sales offices that offer for sale both wholesale houses to REE's and ‘retail’ houses to prospective homeowners / occupants and investors of buy‑to‑let properties. These Home Center offices also offer to prospective buyer / occupants credit counseling and credit repair services, home ownership counseling, including h u d courses to qualify the home buyers for federal government down payment assistance and housing loans (such as the FHA 203k program), real estate brokerage services, mortgage brokerage services, property letting and maintenance services. Finally, the Home Center business makes Private Mortgage Loans to REE's. Thus, the EB-5 Investor will be able to assist the REE's to whom it has made Private Mortgage loans with the sale of the refurbished houses to pre‑qualified homebuyers who will now be eligible for traditional bank mortgage financing, completing a circular financial model that is a badly needed engine for economic activity in these TEA communities.
Each Home Center will be an important tool for community and neighborhood revitalisation and for expanding homeownership opportunities.
The investor’s 100% directly owned Home Center business will engage in two primary functions throughout the visa processing period which are integrally related and mutually interdependent:
»» Provide capital to REE's in the form of short‑term, first mortgage loans in order to enhance the market to buy, renovate, and resell foreclosed residential properties in distressed TEA markets, thereby helping restore the market for residential real estate, enabling otherwise challenged buyers to once again enjoy home ownership whilst taking advantage of the anticipated increase in property values in the medium to long‑term.
»» Create badly needed jobs (especially in the crippled residential housing market) by typically employing from ten to fifteen full‑time employees including administrative positions, trainers and credit counselors, real estate sales persons, letting agents and skilled trade workers to help renovate REE properties.