UWI Homes: The YC-Backed Startup Financing Homes Across Southeast Asia
HOUSD deploys capital through UWI Homes, a Y Combinator-backed housing finance company that has built a $30M off-chain track record over three years with zero defaults. Here's what you need to know about the company and why HOUSD chose them as our exclusive on-chain capital deployment partner.
What UWI does
UWI Homes specializes in Express Building (EB) Financing — short-term bridge loans for residential developers in the Philippines. The model is straightforward:
- A developer has pre-sold housing units to buyers
- Those buyers have pre-approved mortgages from their banks (NOA/LOG issued)
- UWI provides a bridge loan to fund construction
- When construction completes, the buyer's bank disburses the mortgage
- The mortgage proceeds repay UWI's loan
The critical point: UWI only finances units that are already sold to buyers with approved mortgages. The loan exists to bridge the gap between "buyer's bank says yes" and "buyer's bank sends the money."
Why this model works
Traditional developer financing in the Philippines is slow and expensive. Banks take months to process construction loans, and developers — especially smaller ones building affordable housing — often can't wait. UWI fills this gap with faster approvals and a focused underwriting process.
The risk mitigation is built into the structure:
Pre-sold units only. Every unit UWI finances has a buyer who has already committed and been approved for a mortgage. There is no speculative inventory risk.
Bank-backed repayment. The loan isn't repaid by the developer's future sales or cash flow. It's repaid by a specific bank disbursement tied to a specific buyer's mortgage. The repayment source is a Philippine commercial bank, not the developer.
Short duration. Loans have a 90-day repayment cycle. Short duration means lower exposure to changing market conditions and faster capital recycling.
Interest-only structure. Monthly interest payments with principal at maturity, aligned to the mortgage disbursement timeline.
The numbers
Over three years, UWI has deployed $30M in off-chain capital with a 0% default rate. They have financed affordable housing across the Philippines, working with developers who build homes for Filipino families.
HOUSD's on-chain pilot deployed $1.5M through UWI with a 90-day repayment period, bringing this established lending model to DeFi depositors for the first time.
The on-chain exclusivity
HOUSD holds an on-chain exclusivity agreement with UWI Homes. This means all on-chain stablecoin capital deployed to UWI flows through the HOUSD protocol. It's not a referral arrangement — it's a structural partnership where HOUSD is the on-chain financing layer for UWI's lending operations.
Why this matters for depositors
For stablecoin depositors, the UWI partnership provides something rare in DeFi: a fixed 10% APR backed by a lending model that has been stress-tested off-chain for three years. The yield comes from real economic activity — homes being built and bought by real people — not from token emissions, leverage demand, or speculative trading volume.
The housing market in the Philippines doesn't correlate with crypto market movements. When BTC drops 30%, Filipino families still buy homes and banks still process mortgages. That structural independence is what makes this yield genuinely uncorrelated.
HOUSD starts with UWI in Southeast Asia, but the protocol is designed to onboard additional housing finance partners across multiple jurisdictions over time. The goal: a diversified, global portfolio of short-term housing development loans, all accessible through on-chain stablecoin vaults.