Availability of Housing in the Market

• The Oldivai Process starts by evaluating the overall housing availability within an employer’s local labor market.

• Markets with a rental vacancy rate of less than 8% or a sales inventory rate of less than 2% are considered tight, restricting a healthy balance of supply and demand.

• In tight real estate markets, employers may have difficulty recruiting and retaining employees due to the lack of housing.

• This informs our conversations with employers regarding the impact of housing on their business operations and the potential opportunity to partner in the creation of new housing solutions.

The Cost of Housing for Employees

• The Oldivai Process next evaluates the impact of housing costs on specific job categories and the overall labor market.

• The Oldivai Index is used to relate housing costs within a given metro area to an employer’s specific salary data.

• An index score of less than 1.0 (red dots), indicates employees are spending >30% of their gross income on housing, the HUD threshold for burdened housing costs.

• This data guides our conversations with employers regarding the impact of housing costs for their specific workforce and the types of housing solutions needed in the local market.

Leveraging Under Utilized Land

• In markets where limited housing supply is a driving factor, Oldivai can define potential development solutions.

• Our process identifies and rapidly evaluates specific potential development sites within the local market.

• Many employers own parcels of land that are currently underutilized (vacant lots, parking lots, empty buildings) and may be ripe for redevelopment into housing. 

• The contribution of surplus land at below market prices to a workforce housing project drives down total project cost.

• We rapidly test-fit our standardized design template to potential development sites, defining the potential housing opportunity and providing initial project cost estimates for an employer.