The World’s First Condo Gifting Program
By Penny on Feb 21, 2014
Image via Dave Hamilton/Cambodian Childrens Fund
If you’ve ever looked at the TOMS one-for-one business model and wished more companies conducted their business like that, then you’ll be interested to hear about the world’s first condo gifting program by World Housing, a Vancouver-based real estate firm.
This is how it works: When a developer teams up with World Housing, every unit sold will equal a donation of a new home to a family in a third world country. The developer will donate approximately $3,000 from each unit sold to go towards the construction of homes in landfill communities around the world.
The first official certified World Housing project will be a 52-storey condo by Westbank in Granville Bridge, Vancouver. The tower will be designed by Danish architect Bjarke Ingels. More details will be announced in mid-March of this year.
Image via Dave Hamilton/Cambodian Childrens Fund
“Our founding purpose is to create sustainable social change by building and gifting homes to qualified, deserving families that live and sustain themselves around Third World garbage dump communities.” – World Housing
The company actually launched in beta form last year and has already constructed 53 130-square-foot homes in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. Other ongoing projects include initiatives in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico and Manila in the Philippines. Westbank’s development in Vancouver is expected to commence March 18, 2014, and will be followed by three others in Hawaii, Taiwan and most excitingly, Toronto.
In a run-in, which could be considered fate, Sid Landolt and Peter Dupuis, World Housing founders just happened to be on the same flight as Blake Mycoskie, founder of TOMS. Inspired by a conversation they had with Mycoskie about the concept of one-for-one shoe sales, Landolt and Dupuis started drawing up methods to apply the same one-for-one scheme in real estate.
The business model they came up with works by connecting people and organizations in a joint effort to mobilize projects in the Third World. These networks include developers, real estate buyers, NGOs, builders and qualifying home recipients. After gaining certification from World Housing through an application process, property developers then contribute the donations from the sale of each condominium towards the program.
Image via Dave Hamilton/Cambodian Childrens Fund
Business partners in real estate for 33 years, both Dupuis and Landolt are on the same page about helping families living in these conditions, “This takes a family from a sense of hopelessness to hope,” said Landolt. Utilizing existing contacts, the two are committed to making this project a success and hope that the company’s launch last Tuesday will help garner attention from the media.
“The conditions of landfill communities are the worst in the world; these people are literally surviving off of the garbage of others, spending hours a day trying to find clean water and food for their family. Receiving a home gives a stable living environment to help create a better life,” said Dupuis adding that the launch “signals to the world we are real and out in the market.”
We can’t wait to hear more about the Toronto project. All World Housing has revealed about it is that they will be teaming up with Milborne Real Estate Corporation and will officially announce the development this July. You can be sure to get details here, so make sure to check back as the deadline approaches!
