Boulder County company bets on fractional homeownership 

NIWOT — With home prices remaining stubbornly high and interest rates ticking ever-upward, homeownership may feel increasingly out of reach for Millennials and members of Generation Z.

Quarter Inc., a Niwot-based startup, is placing a bet that a fractional-ownership model will help renters achieve their dreams of owning a house. 

The company, which touts itself as the “the nation’s first fractional equity home funding program and technology platform,” is emerging from three years in stealth mode to help would-be owners who “can’t get out of the renting cycle that a lot of people are stuck in,” Quarter’s newly appointed CEO Shannon Diesch told BizWest this week.

SPONSORED CONTENT

Federal District Court Rules Corporate Transparency Act Unconstitutional . . . But Most Small Businesses Must Still Comply

Lyons Gaddis Real Estate and Business Attorney Cameron Grant shares important details of the Corporate Transparency Act (CTA).

Quarter is “fractionalizing homeownership, and we’re matching potential homeowners with home investors,” said Diesch, a recent Columbia University graduate who spent the past three years at Capital One Financial Corp. doing credit and risk management work. “… We’ll take a 10% down payment and match it with investors to buy the other 90% of the home, at which point the investor and the homeowner will co-own the home through something called ‘tenants in common,’ a very old practice you often see in commercial real estate.”

The company has maintained a low profile while its leaders and attorneys have been “doing a huge amount of legal work to ensure everything is in line with securities laws and in line with consumer protection laws,” she said.

Diesch said Quarter has raised about $2 million in seed funding, most of which has gone toward the work attorneys have done to prove that the company’s business model is kosher from a regulatory standpoint. 

As the company launches its go-to-market strategy, the plan is to “target high-cost areas” where homeownership remains a struggle even for people in well-paying jobs, Diesch said. 

The hope is to partner with companies in high-priced home markets that could offer Quarter’s services to workers as a benefit of employment, she said.

Quarter, which expects to soon occupy offices in Longmont, has five workers on its roster, one of whom is Chris Diesch, the CEO’s brother and Quarter’s chief technology officer.

“We work great together,” Shannon Diesch said. “He’s a super-smart tech guy.”