"I grew up in Washington, DC, uptown on Peabody Street. My great-great-great-grandmother bought that home, and it stayed in our family for generations. It was the house I grew up in. My grandmother was the last one to have it. The house was fully paid off, but we lost it to outstanding property taxes in 1998. We learned later that because my grandmother was over 62, she could have had the taxes forgiven. What really sticks with me is how much we didn’t know. If you don’t know something, you can’t fight against it."
Chris Minor's family home, if kept, would now be worth millions. A generational asset was lost simply because crucial information wasn’t readily available to them.
This experience shaped Chris’s life. "It felt like my villain origin story,” he says. “That’s when I decided to learn everything I could about Real Estate."
Chris pursued a degree in Business with a minor in Real Estate, determined to understand the systems that had failed his family. In college, he became president of the campus Real Estate club, where he first encountered Habitat for Humanity as a volunteer—years before he would find himself working there.
After graduating, Chris and his wife spent 12 years saving and educating themselves about the home-buying process, fully aware of the importance of homeownership for their future. Their hard work paid off when they purchased their first home in February 2020. For Chris, knowing that his family had reclaimed homeownership was deeply rewarding.
Now, Chris channels that same drive in his role as a mortgage processor at Habitat Wake, where educating homeowners is at the heart of his work. He meticulously reviews applications and guides candidates through the financial details crucial to the home-buying journey.
“Financial literacy is the number one thing,” Chris emphasizes. “Once you’re financially stable, you can figure everything else out.”
At Habitat Wake, we’re fortunate to have dedicated, knowledgeable staff like Chris, who not only understand the complexities of homeownership but also deeply empathize with the families they serve. “Homeownership is an opportunity to create multigenerational wealth and stability,” Chris says. “Our children can benefit from it and go on to do better than we did.”