Post date: Sep 11, 2017 6:48:32 PM
My name is Charles Steele. I’m studying mechanical engineering at WPI, and I am excited to be able to work on this project. Staying in Venice is an interesting and much larger problem than I initially thought. Every day, I have felt that I have uncovered more and more about the problem being so grave. Today I was able to learn more about mortgages and how my group could use this information to possibly get more Venetians back into Venice.
After a meeting with our advisor and co-advisor, Fabio Carrera and Peter Hansen, they talked about the idea of a rent-to-buy mortgage. With a little more research, I have come to understand more about mortgages and more about how they work. In regards to our project, I think this would work well with the startup Casa Peota. With homeowners leasing out one bedroom to an individual, the money that is made from that person will go to paying off the mortgage. We would want the individual renting to go from a leaser to a homeowner as soon as possible, and Professor Carrera gave us a timeline of about fifteen years from the initial rent period to owning the house. I think that many Venetians would appreciate this idea of having a life in Venice with a possible future of owning a house there as well. With Casa Peota, I think our project can successfully get Venetians to slowly move back into Venice