DECATUR, Ga.—Most landlords hope their tenants stay put and pay rent forever. Promise Homes Co. wants its renters to move out and buy their own houses.
The company has been acquiring occupied rental houses around Atlanta and northern Florida cast off by other big landlords and promoting homeownership to the tenants it inherits.
Promise Homes dangles monthly rent discounts to tenants who boost their credit scores and counsels them on how to do so. It banks emergency rent credit for those who consistently pay on time and will vouch for model tenants when they apply for home loans.
The for-profit company works with Operation Hope, a nonprofit founded by John Hope Bryant that seeks to reduce the racial wealth gap with financial literacy and access to credit. Promise Homes pays Operation Hope to provide the counseling to its residents.
Closely held Promise Homes offers counseling and financial literacy programs to all of its tenants. Many of its renters are Black, given the demographics of the areas in which the company operates and the houses that big home-rental companies have shed while shifting to higher-priced neighborhoods.
