Ian Magruder joined me for a discussion of Landed, the San Francisco-based startup company he works for.  When you sit down with Ian, you can really feel how excited he is about Landed’s work and its mission.  The mission is simple:  to help people buy a home, by providing down payment assistance.

Ask anyone living in the San Francisco and Monterey Bay Area today what the biggest challenge facing the area is, and you’re likely to hear that it’s the exorbitant cost of housing.  One group of people that is especially vocal about the high housing cost is teachers and other school employees.  Most communities in high-cost areas like ours are finding it a challenge to keep great teachers, many of whom simply cannot scrape together the down payment to purchase a home in the bay area.

Landed has stepped into the breach, making it possible for some of these folks to achieve the dream of home ownership.  And while Landed today is working with school district employees in the San Francisco and Monterey Bay region, they are already at work expanding both geographically and also beginning to work with would-be home buyers outside the academic realm.

The startup has a fascinating story to tell, and it’s not just one aimed at home buyers.  Landed is also working with community-minded investors to help them make long-term gains by investing in housing in a socially responsible way.  If you’re interested in hearing about a market-driven approach to addressing the high cost of housing, you’ll want to queue up this week’s edition of the Bay to Bay Podcast.

Landed – web site

Ian Magruder on LinkedIn