Jim Walter Homes began building unfinished shell homes and selling them to returning veterans in 1946. In nearly 60 years, Jim Walter has remained true to its roots of providing affordable homes for the American public.
As an on-your-lot builder, Jim Walter offers homes at various stages of completion, which allows customers to contribute “effort equity” to the building process. The result is that the median price of a Jim Walter home is significantly less—up to roughly 50 percent less in some markets—than other builders.
Realizing that one barrier to minority homeownership is asset and income documentation, Jim Walter's affiliate mortgage arm began a new financing program in 2005 to help selfemployed home buyers obtain mortgages. Between this program and targeted Spanishlanguage initiatives, the company has been able to boost its minority ownership rate to 50 percent.
