Dive Brief:
- JPMorgan Chase pledged to invest $750 billion in housing initiatives by 2035, the bank said in a press release Monday.
- The bank will increase its mortgage lending by about 40% and hire 850 new home lending advisers, it said. Money will be used to help 500,000 customers purchase homes, with 200,000 of those being first-time buyers, the bank said, adding that funds will also be used to help “build and preserve” 1 million affordable housing units.
- JPMorgan’s new investment in housing over the next decade would represent a 40% financing increase in the sector for the bank, compared to the past decade, according to the release.
Dive Insight:
The commitment to housing investment is one pillar of JPMorgan’s “American Dream Initiative,” a 10-year initiative launched in March that also aims to ramp up small-business banking, support healthcare affordability and focus on high-growth geographical areas.
In Monday’s release, Michelle Herrick, JPMorgan’s head of commercial real estate, said “an affordable and resilient housing market is essential to driving economic growth and increasing opportunity,” and the bank is looking to scale housing solutions across the country.
Beyond financing affordable housing units, JPMorgan will work with housing developers, owners, nonprofits and governments to expand housing financing, the bank said, adding that it will count affordable housing units as those that are less than 120% of the area median income.
The bank said it will use the JPMorgan Chase PolicyCenter and Institute to advance and advocate for policies that increase housing supply, expand access to homeownership and advance “tailored, local solutions.” JPMorgan will become chair of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s new Housing Advisory Council. The bank said it will also look to support the implementation of the recently enacted housing bill, the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act.
“Owning a home can transform lives – providing stability, helping families build wealth, and creating a sense of community,” Chase Home Lending CEO Sean Grzebin said in Monday’s release. “Our goal is to make the path to homeownership clearer and more accessible for more people, wherever they are in their financial journey.”
JPMorgan is making a number of investments in affordable housing in California’s San Francisco Bay Area. The bank said it will provide almost $200 million to finance a 342-unit residential building, invest up to $15 million in equity financing in an “essential housing fund” from real estate company Fifth Space, and provide $6 million in new grants to local housing and urban development nonprofits, according to the release.
Fifth Space CEO Enrique Landa said the partnership with JPMorgan – and local nonprofit Crankstart – “brings together the capital and expertise to deliver workforce housing at the scale and speed this moment demands.”
“San Francisco’s housing crisis is real,” Landa said in the release. “We can keep debating it, or we can build.”
JPMorgan’s housing commitment comes a few weeks after Citi said it would commit $25 million to affordable housing through its Citi Impact Fund, the bank’s social impact-focused venture capital fund.
That investment is part of Citi’s own broader housing opportunity initiative, which will look to invest $60 billion over a five-year period and aims to help create or preserve at least 250,000 affordable housing units in the U.S.
