To further its goal of offering more homes for sale under a unique shared-equity model, North America Home Finance (NAHF-CN) has raised $1.7 million through an IPO on the Canadian Securities Exchange.

“We are targeting assets under management of about $500 million. That’s a five times growth over what we had in June 2025,” according to George Lawton, chief executive officer with NAHF, who spoke to RENX Homes.

“What we’ve set out to do is give people access to home ownership and as part of that, trying to combine both private markets and public markets so that we can find capital but also offer innovative solutions to allow people to get on the property ladder effectively.”

The company is a real estate investment corporation that offers a way for potential home owners to build equity for a future purchase.

How the NAHF home equity model works

“It’s a unique structure meant to fund a unique program for people to build equity in a home, but also to work with developers and landlords to help them grow their businesses," NAHF senior advisor Adam Gant said. "And so, using the stock market to fund equity in real estate in different ways and the creation of new homes in the first place."

NAHF allows consumers to make as little as a one per cent payment and then it “completes the purchase using a blend of bank debt and NAHF equity capital,” according to its website.

It finances what it calls HomePlan homes, through a commercial lender on a 70 per cent loan-to-value basis, while the remainder, 29 per cent, becomes NAHF equity that is funded by investors and the firm.

“We think of it as a Swiss Army knife for real estate; housing finance, and be able to adapt to different kinds of transactions with different counter-parties, but ultimately, to provide as many families as possible the chance to share in the equity growth in the home before they become an owner, thereby accelerating their equity growth,” Gant said.

It allows potential homeowners to set aside a monthly payment toward the down payment while living in rental housing “and so roughly, the HomePlan program will help people get to a down payment three times faster than saving on their own,” he said.

“Based on normal or slow appreciation, they should get to five to 10 per cent equity stake, or five per cent to 10 per cent down payment within five to seven years, and then about 10 to 12 years for a 20 per cent down payment. When they get to the point where they want to buy, then they get qualified for a mortgage; give us notice, we go through a valuation process, and then they can convert their equity into their purchase.”

Program is based on model from Singapore

The company was founded in Vancouver, Lawton explained. “Adam and I got together almost 10 years ago, and Adam had the vision around trying to replicate what the Singaporean government did really well, but do it from a private perspective.”

Singapore introduced a plan in 1964 whereby the Housing and Development Board (HDB) offered low-income residents a way to buy into the housing market. It now boasts a home-ownership rate of more than 90 per cent, according to NAHF.

While the company began with a trial development, it is planning to offer the program for many new homes. “Over the years, with the changing economic environment, rental communities have become a very economically favourable thing for both developers and homeowners, and it was a perfect breeding ground to implement our HomePlan agreement, which we did within the Saanich development,” Lawton said.

Currently the firm has a number of homes available but is planning on more.

“We’ve got 108 that have the option of the HomePlan program right now and then we’ve got roughly 127 that are targeted to finish by February, March 2027. And we’ve got an excess of 1,000 additional homes worth of development sites where we’re connected with the developers,” Gant said.

“We started very small, (a) couple of homes to start with the trial and then as we’ve completed more developments, we’ve had more and more to offer with the HomePlan option.”

The firm currently has properties in Kelowna and Victoria, and is looking at expanding to Vancouver.

Expanding the value of rent-to-own programs

Historically, there have been rent-to-own options but it hasn’t provided a significant dent in the level of ownership, according to Gant.

“I think the big difference for us compared to what is traditional rent-to-own historically, there was a set price at a set point in time, and regardless if somebody had the ability to get qualified for the mortgage to buy it, if they didn’t close on that contract, they typically didn’t get their share of the growth, and that was defeating the purpose of the rental agreement in the first place.”

The plan is available to consumers, but NAHF is hoping to also entice builders to participate. “We’re going to focus initially on developers that have already recently completed purpose-built rental buildings, where we can then offer the shared equity program within those buildings,” Gant said.

While the program may offer hope for some homeowners during the current affordability crisis, it could also play a role in alleviating the issue.

“We believe that shared equity housing corporations like North American Finance have a big place going forward, because they can get lower cost financing than individual home buyers can," Gant said. "If they pass that along to the residents, while also helping them build equity, they can really form a key part of the national housing finance system and allow more people to build equity on their way to actually becoming homeowners as well."