Why is It Important?
Homeownership often represents more than a mortgage payment. It’s stability, equity, and a stake in the community. For many cooperative employees, that goal is getting harder to reach. Home prices have outpaced wage growth in recent decades, and even employees who can comfortably afford a monthly mortgage payment often spend years saving enough for a down payment.
In rural service territories, this gap affects cooperatives directly. Employees who can’t afford to buy nearby may leave for cheaper markets, and prospective hires may turn down a job over housing costs alone. A homebuyer assistance program helps make homeownership more attainable for employees in the community they already serve, while providing your cooperative with a tool for retention and recruitment.
Our Role
Homestead Advisers serves as the consultant for your Cooperative Employer-Homebuyer Assistance Program, helping you design and administer a program tailored to your cooperative’s needs. There’s no fee for these consulting services. Once your cooperative decides to establish a Cooperative Employer-Homebuyer Assistance Program, Homestead Funds (advised by Homestead Advisers) is the investment vehicle for the account.
We’re there every step of the way, helping guide you through program design and implementation.
Establishing a Cooperative Employer-Homebuyer Assistance Program
Setting up a homebuyer assistance program involves a few key decisions:
- Talk with a tax professional and legal counsel familiar with cooperatives about the tax treatment and structure of down payment grants, matched savings, or tenure-based contributions.
- Choose a program structure:
- Down Payment Award Grant: A one-time grant your cooperative provides toward an employee’s down payment.
- Matched Savings: Your cooperative matches employee savings contributed through payroll deduction, using the structure of Homestead Advisers’ Employee-Sponsored Savings Program.
- Annual Contributions: Your cooperative makes annual contributions toward an employee’s down payment goal, tied to tenure milestones, using the structure of Homestead Advisers’ Short-Term Incentive and Retention Program.
- Determine clear eligibility requirements, such as a minimum tenure or full-time status, and decide when funds vest or become available to the employee.
- Create program documents describing how employees apply, how contributions accrue, and how the benefit fits alongside your other retention programs. Homestead Advisers can help you put these together.
- Open a Homestead Funds account to hold either the cooperative’s or participant’s contributions and set up a system to track individual employee balances and milestones.
Related Resources
Ready to implement a Cooperative Employer-Homebuyer Assistance Program? Your Regional Relationship Manager can help you get started.
Brian Allen
NATIONAL RELATIONSHIP MANAGER; INVESTMENT ADVISOR REPRESENTATIVE; AND REGISTERED REPRESENTATIVE
Mark Edwards
REGIONAL RELATIONSHIP MANAGER; INVESTMENT ADVISOR REPRESENTATIVE; AND REGISTERED REPRESENTATIVE
Shannon Truman, CFP®
REGIONAL RELATIONSHIP MANAGER; INVESTMENT ADVISOR REPRESENTATIVE; AND REGISTERED REPRESENTATIVE
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Homestead Advisers and Homestead Funds do not offer legal or tax advice. Please consult the appropriate professional regarding your individual circumstances.