Exclusive: D.C.’s new handy portal for home buyers and owners

The District unveiled a new portal that aims to help current and future homeowners pay their mortgages and property taxes. 

Why it matters: The city has many resources and incentives that are easy to miss for homeowners and those shopping around, and frontdoor.dc.gov tries to demystify the process.  

It is dubbed as a “one-stop shop” for homeownership. The District says users can answer a short quiz on the website to see if they qualify for any of the over 50 housing resources.

• "We have developed many programs to give residents a fair shot, but people don’t always know about those programs or know how to access them — this site can help change that,” Mayor Muriel Bowser said in a statement.

Flashback: The new portal is part of Bowser’s push from 2019 to create 36,000 new housing units in the city by 2025, with 12,000 units being affordable. 

Lab @ DC, a D.C. government office focused on helping policy solutions reach residents, created the tool in collaboration with over a dozen city agencies.

💬 Our thought bubble: With housing prices consistently on the rise throughout the pandemic, anything that makes homeownership easier is much needed, especially for first-time buyers.