Homium Review: 1:1 Shared Appreciation, Up to 40% Down Payment Aid, $1,499,500 Sold in Utah Fund (Form D)

What Homium is, and what this page counts

Homium, Inc. is a California corporation that lends and services what it calls shared appreciation mortgages (SAMs), and that builds the pools of those loans investors buy. A SAM is a second mortgage that stands behind the buyer's regular first mortgage. Its homepage says it partners “with state and local HFAs, municipalities and nonprofits” (housing finance agencies) and that it “works with the primary mortgage lender to fund a portion of the homes value, usually between 10% - 35% with a second position loan.” The product also exists outside down payment help: its homeowner pages describe the same loan for owners who want cash from their equity without a monthly payment, and the FAQ said that would first be available in Colorado.

This page reads Homium from the side a buyer is on. It reports what Homium's own pages say the loan costs, the programs that use it, the four SEC Form D notices for the entities behind those programs, and what the CFPB and a pending bill say about this structure. A company page is the company's claim. The documents we could rely on without Homium's say-so are the SEC notices, the CFPB report and database, and the bill text. For the product category, our home equity investment contracts page covers the laws and cases, our five-company comparison counts CFPB complaints and prices a $100,000 payout, and our Hometap review does the same work for Hometap. Homium sits in a different place: it is offered at purchase, through a mortgage lender, in programs with income limits.

What Homium's own pages say the loan costs

Homium's published terms, read November 14, 2026 (company claims)

Read the formula carefully, because it is different from several contracts on our other pages. The CFPB describes the home equity contract companies as requiring “a multiple of their initial payment”, and our comparison page prices caps and starting-value adjustments. Homium's published rule has none of those: the share is fixed on day one at the percentage advanced, applied to the value on the day of exit. The only floor is principal. The borrower's cost is therefore the home's own growth rate, not a rate of return on the loan. Two things the pages do not settle are who sets the starting value when a seller's price and an appraisal differ, and what costs are charged at closing or during the loan. Those are the questions to put to the loan officer.

Where it is offered, and who is in the middle

Homium's homepage says it works with state housing finance agencies. The documents we could read show a narrower picture.

Programs we found that use Homium loans, November 14, 2026

Michigan is the clear case of a state housing finance agency involved: HousingWire reports that “Initial funding comes from MSHDA and philanthropic contributions”, and that the partners “will evaluate results before considering expansion to other markets.” We could not read MSHDA's own release, which returned an access error on November 14, 2026, and we found no MSHDA board resolution on the pilot. Utah's public money comes from a state workforce department, not a housing finance agency: Homium's release says “Funding is also provided by the state through the Department of Workforce Services”, and ImpactAlpha reported an initial $5 million from that department. The same release says Homium “currently operates programs in Michigan and Utah, with additional markets in development.”

Scale is small. ImpactAlpha reported on February 25, 2026 that the Utah fund had so far helped 10 homeowners and that a half-dozen Detroit buyers had closed. It also reported that a $10 million Series A for Homium was led by Sorenson Impact Group, a 2024 raise. Press figures are not documents we can check, and they do not match one another: $5 million of state money in a press report against $1,499,500 sold in the fund's Form D on January 6, 2026. A commitment and an amount sold are different things, and we did not find a document that bridges them.

A $400,000 home, a 10% loan and 7 years (our arithmetic)

The formula Homium and the Utah Dream Fund publish gives a payoff of the greater of principal or the advanced share of the final value. For a $400,000 home, a $40,000 loan is a 10% share. We apply it to the sale price after 7 years. Fees, closing costs and the first mortgage balance are left out because the pages do not give them.

Amount owed to Homium after 7 years, $40,000 loan on a $400,000 home (our arithmetic)

At 3% a year the payoff grows exactly as fast as the home: $40,000 becomes $49,194.95, a 3% yearly rate over the 7 years. At minus 10% a year the floor binds, and the $40,000 owed equals 20.9% of a $191,318.76 home, twice the 10% share the formula would give. The floor protects the buyer from owing a share of a loss; it does not protect the buyer from owing the original amount on a house that has lost much of its value, and the first mortgage still has to be paid ahead of it.

The Utah cap changes the share. At 40% of a $400,000 purchase price the aid would be $160,000, above the $150,000 limit in the release, so the largest loan is $150,000, a 37.5% share. At 3% a year for 7 years that is $184,481.08 owed, which is $34,481.08 above the amount advanced (our arithmetic). A larger loan buys a bigger share of every dollar the home gains, on the same 1:1 rule.

For comparison with Homium's own example: a $50,000 loan on a $500,000 home that rises to $750,000 owes 10% of $750,000, or $75,000 (the FAQ's figure, which our formula reproduces).

Who funds it: four Form D notices

Homium's pages say its investor product is a token backed by a pool of SAM loans, sold to qualified institutional buyers under Rule 144A and recorded by a transfer agent, with quarterly tender offers paid from loan payoffs. We found no SEC filing for that pool. What EDGAR does hold are Form D notices (a notice of an exempt offering, not a registration) for three entities, all managed by the Homium group.

Homium group Form D notices on EDGAR, searched November 14, 2026

The three 2025 and 2026 notices describe pooled investment funds, state that no sales commissions or finders fees are paid, and give the use of proceeds in the same words: “All proceeds will be used to purchase qualifying shared appreciation mortgage loans made in connection with a down payment assistance program and cover program expenses incurred to originate, acquire and manage the mortgage loans.” The Homium, Inc. and Michigan fund notices carry the same $625,289 and the same single investor, so they look like one offering reported under two filers; we do not add them. The Utah notice lists Homium Inc as the fund's managing member and solicits in Utah and Washington; the Michigan ones list Michigan and Washington. None of the three entities files a 10-K, 10-Q or 1-K, so there are no audited numbers, loan counts or default data to read.

Two observations follow. The Form Ds claim Rule 506(c) with a $200,000 minimum, while Homium's investor pages describe Rule 144A sales to institutions only; those can be different vehicles, and we did not find the one that issues the tokens. And the money in these funds is small next to the consumer-facing numbers of the companies in our comparison page. A Form D amount is a notice by the issuer, not a verified figure.

What the CFPB and Congress say

CFPB. The CFPB's Issue Spotlight on home equity contracts (January 15, 2025) is about the multiplier products, which it says “require a multiple of their initial payment.” Footnote 23 then carves out a group: “A few companies and nonprofits do offer HEIs or shared equity programs that are 1:1 sales of the home’s value. See, for example, Homium.” That sentence describes a formula; it is not a finding about Homium's contracts, fees or conduct. The CFPB Consumer Complaint Database, last updated November 13, 2026, returned 0 complaints for the company filter “Homium” and 0 for the search term “homium” on November 14, 2026. With 16 closings reported by the press across Utah and Detroit, zero is not evidence of anything either way.

H.R. 8116, the SHARE Act. Introduced March 26, 2026 and referred to the House Ways and Means Committee, the bill would add Section 139J to the Internal Revenue Code. It would exclude from gross income the repayment above principal on a “shared appreciation mortgage” if the borrower's income did not exceed 140 percent of area median income and the home was the borrower's principal residence. The definition requires a second lien behind a qualified mortgage, a mortgage not above 49 percent of the purchase price, no payment other than the shared appreciation, and a share that “does not exceed” the loan divided by the purchase price. It would apply to amounts received after December 31, 2025. The latest action in the bill status file (updated September 19, 2026) is the referral. Homium's blog describes the bill as pointing toward its format; the text is the primary document and it is only a proposal.

What we could not find

• A fee schedule. No origination, servicing, appraisal or payoff-letter charge is listed on the pages we read.
• A state housing finance agency program guide or board resolution. The only agency involvement we could document is MSHDA's, through press reports; Colorado and Minnesota have nothing.
• Servicer and default terms. The FAQ says a borrower must keep taxes, insurance and the first mortgage current; it does not say what Homium may do if the borrower does not.
• Court records. CourtListener was unavailable on November 14, 2026, so court records are not scored. We make no statement that there are none.
• Licensing. Homium's pages list NMLS ID 2442369 for the company; we did not check NMLS Consumer Access.

What a reader can do with this

1. Ask the loan officer for the payoff in writing, at three home values. Use your purchase price and the loan amount and ask for the dollars owed after 3, 7 and 10 years if the home gains 0%, 3% and 6% a year. Compare with the table above.
2. Ask what “value” means at exit. The FAQ says a sale price or a qualifying appraisal sets it. Ask what happens if the two differ, and who pays for the appraisal.
3. Ask for every fee. Origination, servicing, closing and payoff charges are not published; they are part of the real cost, and they sit outside the formula.
4. Ask what the second lien does to a refinance. The FAQ says repayment is due on a sale or a cash-out refinance. Ask what happens at a rate-and-term refinance, and whether Homium will agree to stay behind the new first mortgage.
5. Check the limits for your program. Utah: income up to 140% of AMI and the $150,000 cap. Detroit: $45,000 or more in income, a Wayne County connection and a home inside the city. Homium's own loans: a 620 credit score.
6. Put the loan next to the other ways to fill a down payment gap. For the contracts that use multipliers, see our home equity investment contracts page and our Point review and Unlock review.

This is analysis of public documents, not investment, legal or tax advice.

FAQ

This is analysis of public documents, not investment, legal or tax advice. Sources: Homium's homepage, FAQ, How It Works, homeowners and calculator pages, Homium's blog post of April 21, 2026, the Utah Dream Fund site and the Tobias Harris Homeownership Initiative Detroit pages (read November 14, 2026); Homium's PR Newswire release of February 10, 2026 and Guild Mortgage's Business Wire release of September 22, 2025; ImpactAlpha reports of February 25, 2026 and June 6, 2024; HousingWire's report on the Detroit pilot; the CFPB Issue Spotlight “Home Equity Contracts: Market Overview” (January 15, 2025) and the CFPB Consumer Complaint Database (pulled November 14, 2026); SEC Form D notices accession 0001774809-19-000001, 0001774809-25-000004, 0002090029-25-000001 and 0002091877-26-000002; H.R. 8116 (119th Congress) as introduced March 26, 2026 and its bill status file. Michigan's agency release could not be read on November 14, 2026; NMLS Consumer Access, state regulator sites and court dockets were not checked.