By Katie Roper

Bill Ricardi is on a mission to bring affordable housing to Los Altos and the mid-Peninsula. “People grow up here but then can’t afford to stay,” he said. “HomeSplit is a way to change that.”

HomeSplit.com, Ricardi’s new Internet site, takes an old type of real estate - multifamily housing complexes typically purchased by an investor and used for rental income - and repurposes it. HomeSplit matches up moderate-income buyers who purchase multifamily housing together in a legal arrangement called “tenants-in-common.” But rather than rent out the units, the buyers live in them.

Ricardi illustrates the benefit of HomeSplit for a duplex currently for sale in Mountain View. One unit is three bedrooms and two baths, the other two bedrooms and one bath. The property is on the market for about $900,000. Using HomeSplit, a family could purchase the larger unit for about $500,000, and a single person could purchase the smaller unit for $400,000, and they’d both own “fabulous homes right in the heart of downtown Mountain View,” he said.

The tenants-in-common concept has been around for a long time;

Ricardi’s partner, a San Francisco lawyer, has facilitated sales like this for 20 years to get around San Francisco’s strict rent-control laws. But the concept has not been broadly adopted due to difficulties with legal contracts, lenders’ reluctance to loan money to tenants-in-common buyers, and the difficulty of finding partners with compatible goals, lifestyles and time frames.

HomeSplit solves these problems, according to Ricardi, by providing “onestop shopping.” Ricardi has partnerships with a title company, lawyers and mortgage brokers, all of whom understand the complexities of tenants-in-common arrangements and are happy to work with buyers.

One key to the success of the HomeSplit concept is that it is complementary to the traditional market for multifamily units. Ricardi said investment buyers of such units place a higher value on property sold with long-term renters already living in it, because the biggest challenge they face is finding reliable tenants. HomeSplit buyers, on the other hand, place a higher value on property with vacancies or short-term renters, because the buyers are purchasing the units to move into.

According to Ricardi, his background is uniquely suited to operate HomeSplit. He’s a licensed realtor who has invested in real estate for a number of years, so he knows how to value, buy and sell property. Before getting into real estate, he was in high tech, so he understands the complexities of building and promoting a Web site. The back end for the HomeSplit service, for instance, is the same platform that several Internet dating sites use, and Ricardi said his main method of promoting his new service will be through search-engine marketing.

“I know how to get listed on search engines,” he said.

The service is too new to have closed any deals. Ricardi opened his virtual doors three weeks ago. He said he has several clients already shopping for property in the Los Altos- Mountain View-Palo Alto area.

Ricardi plans to market his service through “grassroots” initiatives, he said. He also plans to rent booth space at flea markets, where he will help people who do not have Internet access and who need Spanish-language help.

“This is how single people can afford to buy real estate, so companies are interested in getting the word out to their employees,” he said.

For more information, visit www.homesplit.com.