Safehold Finalist for Ivory Prize: Ground-Lease Model to Improve Housing Affordability

Safehold wins Ivory Prize recognition for ground-lease approach

Safehold Inc. is selected as a finalist for the 2026 Ivory Prize for Housing Affordability, highlighting its ground-lease model as a scalable tool to widen access to housing finance. The award spotlights organizations delivering innovative, feasible and replicable solutions across finance, construction and policy, and Safehold’s nomination underscores the company’s emphasis on reducing upfront land costs to improve project feasibility amid elevated interest rates and rising construction expenses.

Company officials say the ground-lease capital Safehold supplies helps bridge capital-structure gaps that are constraining developers, particularly on multifamily and affordable housing projects. Steve Wylder, Head of Investments, stresses the firm is addressing considerable unmet demand for affordable housing by unlocking land value beneath buildings, which allows owners of multifamily, affordable housing, office, industrial, hospitality, student housing, life science and mixed-use properties to generate higher returns with less risk.

Safehold, which creates the modern ground lease industry in 2017 and is taxed as a real estate investment trust, frames the Ivory Prize nod as validation of its model’s scalability and potential to be adopted across a fragmented, risk-averse sector. Ivory Innovations’ Chad Reed praises this year’s finalists for offering proven, replicable solutions and notes the prize exists to elevate what works so policymakers and practitioners can learn from success stories.

Dedicated Affordable Housing push and partnerships

Safehold is expanding its affordable housing focus through a dedicated Affordable Housing team launched in 2025 and signals intent to accelerate deployment of capital through partnerships with public and private stakeholders. The company points interested parties to safeholdaffordablehousing.com for program details and safeholdinc.com for broader corporate information, and directs media and investment inquiries to its investments contact, Steve Wylder.

Competition and strategic positioning

As creator and leader of the modern ground lease industry, Safehold competes across multiple disciplines and leverages long-term capital and flexible lease structures to lower upfront development costs for developers facing financing headwinds. The firm emphasizes that while there is no single solution to the U.S. housing crisis, its ground-lease approach aims to be a replicable piece of a broader strategy to improve affordability and project feasibility at scale.