Earlier this summer, local real estate agent and nonprofit executive Ian Carter was named co-director of Own It — Building Black Wealth, a local organization that brings together professionals in the real estate, banking, and financial industries to help increase generational wealth in Black communities through homeownership.
“For me, it was just a natural transition, because Own It really embodies my big why,” Carter said. “If I was to take my big why and turn it into a program, it really hits all the key indicators for why I got into residential real estate.”
Growing up in Rockford, Ill., Carter often served as his grandfather’s right hand as he managed a handful of properties. He spent summers tinkering with roofs and furnaces, collecting rent, and interacting with tenants.
Despite this background, it wasn’t until he was about 19 years old that he met his first Black real estate agent, changing the way he thought about the work he’d been doing with his grandfather.
“Housing [and] real estate is something that I’ve been involved with on some level my entire life,” Carter said. “[But] it wasn’t actually until that point that I [even thought of] myself as a Black real estate professional, because I had never seen it.”
This realization — and the obvious gap that went along with it — inspired Carter to go to school for residential and commercial management with an emphasis on energy efficiency. Over the years, he learned the ins and outs of things like development, construction, and general contracting.
Then, when the COVID-19 pandemic hit, he decided to get his residential real estate license to deepen his knowledge and further serve his community.
“I often found myself in spaces where I was one of few, if not the only [Black real estate agent],” he explained. Since then, he’s been working as a real estate agent at Keller Williams to help Madisonians with the process of homebuying and all things real estate.
Being one of the few Black people in these spaces made Carter contemplate why there was such a gap not only in real estate involvement, but homeownership, between Black and white Madisonians.
“The biggest difference between the two groupings is access to information, access to wealth, literacy, [and] entrepreneurship,” he explained. He adds that people of color in Madison also fall behind in terms of access to actual housing.
Carter notes that while Madison is often ranked as one of the best places to live in the country, historical barriers that impede people of color from owning their homes creates a “tale of two cities.”
“We have so much abundance, and with that abundance comes philanthropy and giving, but it also creates the space for deficit,” Carter said. “Those who don’t necessarily have [a lot of wealth] come to an area like ours because we are ripe with resources, which is a good thing, but it creates two very different pictures as it relates to the citizens of our community.”
This lack of wealth poses a challenge against Madison’s ever-increasing rent. “It is definitely negatively impacting and limiting the amount of options that Black and brown renters have,” Carter said.
For people of color, moving out of Madison to nearby suburbs isn’t necessarily the solution, either. “You can go 20 minutes in any direction and significantly gain leverage in your dollars. We know that,” Carter said.
“But the reality of the situation is, as it relates to Black and brown communities, we don’t necessarily have a presence [in those places], so we don’t necessarily feel comfortable in these communities,” he said.
To combat these barriers, Carter began offering public forums that gave community members access to information about the home-owning process, a chance to meet lenders and home inspectors, and so on.
“My big why is to take that information that I have that I’m getting from these [real estate] spaces and take them back to my neighborhood, to the places where these conversations don’t historically occur [and are most impacted].” Carter said.
Because of this grassroots work, a colleague at Keller Williams introduced him to Own It, identifying a point of synergy between what Carter and the organization were doing.
“It was actually an exact alignment with what I was trying to do. And so I just jumped in wherever they needed me,” Carter said.
Since then, Carter has served as an Own It ambassador, realtor, mentor, and teacher.
“[Own It] addresses a lot of the issues and systematic problems that we’ve had as an industry, as a society, and then it also provides substantive, actionable solutions that can be implemented in any community,” he said.
One way that Own It is able to increase access for homeowners of color is providing financial support for down payments. Typically, down payment assistance requires income restrictions that disqualify many from being able to receive it, which Carter says often creates a “catch-22” for folks.
Own It offers aspiring homeowners $18,000 in down payment assistance regardless of their income, funds which are in part, funded by Own It ambassadors themselves.
“This allows for us who have benefited from this system—and the majority of those individuals are white—to give back a portion [of what we earn],” Carter said. “So as an ambassador, I take a portion of all my closings and it goes right into the fund.”
In his new role as Co-Director of Own It, Carter’s efforts are on bolstering the organization’s educational program, which is at the core of his personal mission around making home ownership more equitable and confronting “residual effects of those systematic and racial barriers that existed not that long ago.”
“My main initial goal is to make the education portion of our program as efficient and accessible as possible. The initial education component isn’t even about wealth building or home ownership,” he explained.
“It’s actually about the history [and] educating [people] of what has happened in our country, which has actually designed the landscape [and] how our cities are made up of everything from redlining to the highway system all the way down to how it affects your quality of life and your health outcomes.”
He continued: “Once you’re properly educated, you have way more options, and the amount of options has a direct impact on your quality of life.”
Ultimately, Carter wants to give everyone the tools they need — whether it be educational or financial — to start building generational wealth and practice financial freedom.
“[It’s important for] those who are actually involved and impacted to be the ones to do this, as opposed to waiting for the government or some type of bureaucracy or somebody else to come in,” he said.
“Owning your own home feeds into every aspect of your life, and so that’s in turn, why this homeownership impacts every aspect of our life,” Carter explained. “It’s not just an economic issue. It’s a racial equity issue.”
