10 Ways the Starter Home Plan is Different

The Starter Home Plan and Playbooks are a boldly comprehensive roadmap for transformational change. A lot goes into making that happen, and it hasn't been done before.

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Takes a boldly comprehensive approach

Encompasses all four critical areas of the starter home ecosystem (Land and Development, Policy and Regulation, Financing, and Workforce) and explicitly addresses their complex interactions.

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Prioritizes evaluation & transparency

Tests hypotheses, refines methods, and validates the model through analysis of data collected from demonstration projects; publishes continuously updated performance data online.

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Delivers an actionable roadmap

Combines rigor and practicality in a detailed, task-level application guide based on current research, promising practices, practical expertise, and prevailing conditions.

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Thinks & acts like a network

Relies on proven principles of leadership in impact networks: prioritizing mission over organization; humility over brand; trust over control; and constellations over stars.

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Collaborates deeply

Not the work of one expert, perspective, or sector; leans on partnerships with respected thought and practice leaders across all four focus areas and assertively engages the private sector.

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Centers offsite methods & systems-based development

Assumes their potential to augment and enhance current approaches, emphasizes them strategically, and identifies all conditions required for their success.

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Recognizes adaptive challenges

Understands that the impact of previous efforts was limited by a focus on technical issues without addressing critical barriers rooted in expectations, habits, incentives, processes, and products.

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Confronts production disconnects

Acknowledges tensions between the pipeline needed to expand factory capacity, the risk tolerance of financiers, and the biases of development; proposes ways to create the rhythm of scaled throughput.

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Embraces discovery

Seeks breakthroughs by welcoming emergent ideas across sectors, industries, and communities; releases problem solving by fostering interdependence rather than blame.

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Compels ownership

Motivates sustained commitment from ecosystem actors, helping them lean into risk and investing them in the work’s success.