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It takes a community: Ribbon's grassroots work with Black Women Invest is the first step to bridging the racial gap in home ownership.

September 8, 2022
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It takes a community: Ribbon's grassroots work with Black Women Invest is the first step to bridging the racial gap in home ownership.

Black people have historically been left behind when it comes to homeownership. Ribbon hosted a brunch with Black Women Invest to learn how to help change this. Read more today.

For far too long, many Black Americans have felt left out of the conversation regarding homeownership — and it’s not hard to see why. 

For generations, Black Americans have been systematically and intentionally discriminated against at every step of the home buying process. The result? A 30% homeownership gap between Black and White Americans, with only 44% of Black Americans owning their homes.

Years of unfair policies and discrimination have ensured that not only are the odds stacked against Black Americans when buying a home, but accessing the resources they need to achieve homeownership is beyond their reach, too. 

At Ribbon, we're working to change that. We recently teamed up with Black Women Invest in Atlanta to host a brunch where we had the opportunity to sit down and meet with 50 Black women attendees to discuss how Ribbon can best support them on their journeys to homeownership. 

The event, catered to educating Black women on wealth-building opportunities, served as the perfect segue way into how Ribbon can empower all buyers with cash-backed solutions to enable homeownership. 

Schelo Doirin, Founder of Black Women Invest, says the event provided a safe space for Black women to ask those questions they never felt comfortable enough to ask in a room full of supportive women who look just like them.

"Historically, Black people have been left behind when it comes to being homeowners — so this event was a great opportunity to help people looking to buy and considering ways to continue to build wealth," she said. 

"It was an opportunity to show them that they can do it, too, and the process can be made very easy for them through the use of Ribbon," she continues. 

One of the major deterrents to buying a home, Schelo says, is that many people are under the impression that they don't qualify. Another reason? Fear. 

"It really cripples people from moving forward with their home buying process," she said. "But being in the room and listening to other people say, 'I was there, I thought the same thing, but it wasn't true,' gives aspiring homebuyers the extra push to go for it.’”

And if there were any feelings of doubt, Kenya Johnson, a happen-stance attendee, shared her inspiring story of homeownership from the crowd — and how she used Ribbon to do it.

Kenya was on the verge of giving up on finding a home in Douglasville, Georgia, until her agent's broker told her about Ribbon. Six weeks after starting with Ribbon, Kenya and her husband placed an all-cash offer on a three-bedroom, three-bath home and won. 

She hopes that sharing her homebuying success story at the event inspires other Black women and people of color to use Ribbon as a means to get the home they always wanted. 

"I am hoping that they don't waste any time with the traditional route, and see Ribbon as a faster route and the best one for us, so they avoid the same struggles I experienced without having a cash offer."

Educating homebuyers within the community is one way we're spreading the word. Giving Black real estate agents and lenders resources like Ribbon to serve their clients better is another way. 

As Schelo aptly put it, "It takes a community to become a home buyer." Here at Ribbon, we hope that hosting events like this in the future will help us empower more communities of color to embark on their home-buying journey and, together, work on closing the racial gap in homeownership.  

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