LAKE COUNTY, Fla. — Between leading classroom activities, coordinating student extracurriculars and designing the yearbook, Stacie Smith keeps very busy. Since opening Inspire Learning Academy in 2017, the certified special needs teacher and counselor doesn’t get many breaks in her day-to-day life.

“There are multiple hats that I wear,” Smith says: youth confidante, mentor, principal, scholarship scout and, of course, teacher. “It’s very rewarding to see the students growing, to help them learn and to help them find their specific way of learning, because it isn’t the same for everyone.”

Running a school for special needs kids is incredibly rewarding, and exhausting. That’s why Smith is especially grateful for the peace and quiet of her new three-bedroom home, which she recently bought with her husband in Tavares. Although they officially became homeowners in February, initially, the couple had the chance to test out their first home: by renting it through a company called Divvy.

Divvy’s mission is to “make homeownership accessible to everyone,” according to the company's website. The lease-to-own enterprise operates in more than a dozen metro areas. Divvy launched in Orlando in late 2020 following success in the neighboring Tampa market.

“If you can get approved for a traditional mortgage today, we say: Go for it,” Divvy’s site reads, but if not, the company accepts some applicants who may otherwise struggle to get a home loan. That might be somebody who is self-employed, recently changed jobs or has a lower FICO credit score than what lenders typically require (Divvy’s minimum for applicants is 550).

“Generally, people come to Divvy because they haven’t been able to secure a mortgage but also have a sense of what they need to do to get qualified (i.e. proof of funds, savings, credit score),” Divvy wrote to Spectrum News.

That was the case for Smith and her husband, who generally knew what they would have to do to become homeowners before starting Divvy’s buyback process. On paper, Smith says, her husband was the stronger applicant; Smith, a self-employed business owner, was the couple’s “weakest link," especially because the school took a loss in 2020. Through Divvy’s process, they were able to build equity, directing part of their monthly rent toward an eventual down payment on the home.

But even after Divvy approved them, Smith says the couple wasn’t immediately sure they’d want to live so far away from where they both work. They each had one key thing keeping them there; they each have family in Lake County, and wanted to be closer to them.

“So that’s what we thought we would do, see if it was exactly what we wanted to do,” Smith said. “[Divvy] gives you the chance to test out your house, to test out the environment, to test out the neighborhood, and make sure you like it.”

Turns out, they did. After trying it out as a rental for nine months, Smith and her husband ended up closing on the home, which Divvy originally bought in cash for $345,000. But if Smith had ultimately chosen not to buy the home, she could have backed out, by paying Divvy’s relisting fee, 2% of the home’s original purchase price.

It’s crucial to be fully aware of all such stipulations before entering into any lease-to-own agreement, so you can keep your own best interests in mind, according to Florida Housing Coalition President Jaimie Ross. Besides knowing whether or not you can back out of buying a lease-to-own home, Ross says you should also clarify what happens if you make a late payment.

Divvy says it does impose late fees, and that consistently late payments may result in lease termination.

“However, we want to be fair to our customers to account for one-off life events and have grace periods built into our policy,” Divvy wrote to Spectrum News. Divvy said it was unable to provide a copy of a standard lease.

Ross emphasized the differences between a corporate equity investor, who may not even know their tenants personally, and a mission-driven nonprofit, like a community land trust.