Editing Sweat equity (section)

== Sweat equity in real estate ==

Sweat equity has an application in business real estate, for example, where the owners put in effort and toil to build the business, in real estate where owners can perform D.I.Y. improvements and increase the value of the real estate, and in other areas such as an auto owner putting in their own effort and toil to increase the value of the vehicle.
 
The term sweat equity explains the fact that value added to someone's own house by [[unpaid work]] results in measurable market rate value increase in house price. The more labor applied to the home, and the greater the resultant increase in value, the more sweat equity has been used. The concept of sweat equity was first employed in the United States by the American Friends Service Committee in the [[Penn-Craft Historic District|Penn Craft self-help housing project]] beginning in 1937. The AFSC began using the term in the 1950s when helping migrant farmers in California to build their own homes. It is perhaps most popularly associated today with a successful model used by [[Habitat for Humanity]], in which families who would otherwise be unable to purchase a home contribute sweat equity hours to the construction of their own home or the homes of other Habitat for Humanity partner families, or by [[volunteering]] to assist the organization in other ways. Once living in their new home, the family then make interest-free mortgage payments into a [[revolving fund]]<ref>{{cite web|last=Habitat for Humanity|first=International|title=Fund for Humanity|url=http://www.habitat.org/how/historytext.aspx}}</ref> which then provides capital to build homes for other families.