BuildTrust

Making backyard and factory-built home construction lendable.

BuildTrust provides the underwriting and data standards, construction administration, and program designs that let lenders, housing finance agencies, and mission capital fund ADUs, infill, and factory-built housing at scale.

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One loan, end to endSecond lien · single-close · construction-to-permanent
  1. CloseCloses at permit with a fixed-price contract. The first mortgage stays.
  2. BuildDraws released against verified production.
    • Order
    • Frame
    • Finish
    • Set
    • Complete
  3. OccupyCertificate of occupancy. Rent begins.
  4. PermanentSold or kept as an ordinary second mortgage.
Under it, BuildTrust
  • The loan standard
  • Applicant screening
  • Construction administration
  • One linked record
Why

The lot is there. The rent is there. The loan isn't.

The money has to come from a second loan built around a project that doesn't exist yet, and the record that would let capital price that loan has never been collected. Factory-built housing has the mirror problem: value that sits on a factory floor where standard construction lending can't see it. BuildTrust closes both gaps with the same machinery.

  • 22states have broadly legalized ADUs
  • 26.5Mhomeowners can now build one by right
  • 177,000ADUs permitted in California since 2017

Estimates based on Census ACS and California HCD data.

What we build

A standard, a record, and programs built on them.

ADU and infill construction finance

Standardized construction-to-permanent second-lien programs for backyard homes and small infill: one credit box, one screening standard, one draw process, one record.

Now: a standardized ADU construction-loan program in development for state housing finance agencies, their lender networks, and mission capital.

Factory-built housing finance

The pieces that let a lender finance a home while it is still on the factory floor: manufacturer qualification, milestone draw verification, collateral that follows the module, completion-risk assessment.

Now: collateral, draw-verification, and completion-risk frameworks for lending on factory-built housing (including manufactured and modular).

Who it's for

Four seats, one program design.

Housing finance agencies and governments

Every state is designing its own ADU loan, and none can build the secondary market alone. Put yours on the common loan.

Lenders and CDFIs

Make the loan without inventing the program. Hold the construction phase or sell it.

Philanthropy and mission investors

Put catalytic capital where it changes lender behavior, with a record that makes the next dollar cheaper than the last.

Builders and manufacturers

A lending standard your customers can qualify under. Fragmented demand becomes predictable order flow.

The platform

Every program runs on the same infrastructure.

So every loan adds to the same record.

  • Loan data standardOne linked record for every loan, from screening through repayment.
  • Milestone draw verificationBuilt for factory production, not only site inspections.
  • Builder and manufacturer qualificationWith the financial-health checks that keep a program safe.
  • Completion backstopA factory failure costs the homeowner time, not the unit.
Dan Hardcastle
Founder

Dan Hardcastle

Dan has spent a decade on one problem from three different seats: housing finance doesn't know how to pay for homes developed in new ways—whether sited in backyards or built in factories.

He first met the problem as a founder: BuildUP, the ADU development platform he started in 2017, worked with government and nonprofit partners to design the country’s first revolving ADU loan fund. He then went to HUD to take on the gaps in the national construction-finance machinery, leading federal policy work on ADU and factory-built housing: developing FHA's guidance that first recognized ADU rental income in underwriting, relaunching HUD's Innovative Housing Showcase on the National Mall, and championing the expansion of the HUD Code for Manufactured Housing. BuildTrust now builds what the policy seat showed was missing: a unified national platform to make it easy for lenders to originate, and capital markets to purchase, loans that build innovative housing.

  • HUD and FHASenior Advisor, 2021–2025
  • Terner LabsHousing Venture Lab Ideas Fellowship, 2025–26
  • Casita CoalitionChair of the board

Working on an ADU or factory-built housing program?

Tell us about it. Homeowners: BuildTrust doesn't lend directly, but leave your email and we'll tell you when programs open in your state.