Celebrating Latine Heritage Month with LPA: Promoting Equity in Housing (Part 2 of 2)
Carlos Alvarado, born and raised in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, was raised to be an entrepreneur through his familial responsibilities.
By Jonathan Gramling
Carlos Alvarado is an entrepreneur and businessman who heads up The Alvarado Group from an office on Monroe Street. He is also a community activist who promotes the importance of generation wealth as a pathway to financial and personal freedom. In some ways, he has learned that from the ground floor up, starting during his childhood in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico.
Steadily, Alvarado and his wife Sara have built up their professional and personal wealth through the selling of real estate. But what gave them a jump start down this path was when Sara’s father co-signed the note that allowed them to purchase their own home. And as their mortgage has decreased and the value of their home has increased, they have so many more financial options to deal with the monetary demands of raising a family and meeting the daily demands of life.
“It is important for our community to know that one of the best vehicles for them to build generational wealth is through home ownership,” Alvarado said. “And a lot of us — Black and Brown people — don’t. We are just learning about that. I think we have to provide information to our community so that they understand that if they own a house, they will be better off using some of the house equity to send their kids to college or reinvest some of that equity into their business or something different. They might need some cash. The equity in their house might be a really good resource for them when it comes to hard times and needed times. That’s not really talked about that much. And I think we need to provide that information more often so that our folks who are understanding it might get into a house instead of giving your rent money to a home owner.”
While Alvarado and Sara were content to give back to the community through traditional avenue, one of their employees challenged them to do something more to increase the home ownership opportunities for Black and Brown people. In essence, they were challenged to put their money
where their mouth is. And so OWN IT: Building Black Wealth was born, which is a private down payment assistance program targeting Black and Brown people. The program is fully funded by real estate companies and private individuals.
“In real estate, you cannot discriminate based on race,” Alvarado said. “But there is no such thing as race funding. So in order to do this, we had to partner with an entity where most of their membership is Black and Brown. We created a partnership with One City Schools on the south side near Monona. Most of their students are Black and Brown. We could direct those funds to those individuals and create more housing opportunities. The entity is led by Tiffany Malone and Sara Alvarado — who stepped away from The Alvarado Group in 2019. It was created and it is growing. Individuals have to go through a class, from 6-8 p.m. where they learn about financial literacy and how to maintain a house once they purchase it. It’s a two-way program. Once they go through that, then they are actually receiving a certificate with $18,000 right now. You know parents are allowed to give their kids $18,000 per year without being taxed. Those individuals will get $18,000 with no requirements. The city usually has a lot of requirements and red tape. This one doesn’t. The individual can use that money towards the down payment and closing costs, anything related towards their house purchase. I’m really proud of the program.”
Alvarado emphasized that OWN IT is not his company’s program. It is a community program that he encourages other realtors and community members to contribute to.
“We’re asking the real estate industry to contribute to the program,” Alvarado said. “Churches and neighborhoods are also contributing. I had a client who hired me to sell their house. They hired me specifically because of what we are doing with that program and in the community. When we closed, they knew that we were going to contribute towards that program and then the seller contributed $1,500. And then a couple of years later, the seller called me and told me, ‘I have some money that is coming and it is ready for me to withdraw from our retirement plan that I want to contribute towards that program. It was $25,000-$35,000. He asked if he could contribute that. And I said, ‘Absolutely.’ I was so excited to see that there were people believing in what was being done through the program.”
Alvarado and his wife were able to build their wealth through the generational wealth of his wife’s father. Alvarado is working to ensure that many Black and Brown people — regardless of their family’s status — are in a position to begin that climb to generational wealth. And by so doing, he is working to reduce the economic disparities that the Black and Brown communities experience. And what nobler cause can a realtor aspire to.
To learn more about BUILD IT, contact Carlos Alvarado at carlos@thealvaradogroup.com.
