Welcome the people you can't afford to lose.
WIMBY — Welcome In My Back Yard — helps you keep the people you can't afford to lose. You fund a forgivable down-payment loan so a senior employee can buy a house in your town, and it forgives a little more every year they stay. The tax math is handled so it's the smallest it can lawfully be, and the program is built on a clear rule that treats everyone the same — objective, documented, and defensible.
For the owner who knows everyone's first name.
If losing one person would genuinely hurt your business — and them leaving might mean their family moves out of town — this was built for you.
Specialty Trades
Roofing, parking-lot striping, HVAC, electrical — owner-operators whose business runs on a handful of irreplaceable crew leads. Give them a reason to stay.
Pediatric Clinics
Independent peds practices going head-to-head with hospital groups for skilled nurses and therapists. Give your best people a reason to put down roots in your town.
Occupational Therapy Clinics
OT practices where one therapist leaving can strand a caseload. Turn tenure into a house in town your team can bank on.
Physical & Speech Therapy Clinics
Independent PT and SLP practices where a senior clinician leaving means families on a waitlist and the hospital system picking up the referrals. Give your best therapists a reason to build their life around your clinic.
What a defensible program looks like.
One objective rule, applied to everyone, with the paperwork to show it — that is what makes a housing-assistance program defensible. The packet below is the documented record WIMBY produces for every loan; your CPA reviews and signs it, not a summary she has to take on faith.
- AFR sourced from the IRS Rev Rul for the origination month — no surprise rate at year-end.
- W-2 wage events ready for Gusto payroll — direct push is a planned addition.
- Attorney-drafted loan documents for CA, TX, NY, FL, and IL.
- Quarterly CPA packet — reviewed before April, not during it.
One objective rule, applied to everyone and documented, makes a program more defensible than help handed out case by case — though it isn't a guarantee, and a neutral rule that ends up shutting out a protected group can still be a problem, so check yours with your own advisors. WIMBY structures the program and your CPA reviews and signs off; we don't provide tax advice.
What would it cost to replace them?
Losing a senior person costs far more than their salary — recruiting, lost ramp-up, and the work that waits while you rehire. Size the stake for your own team.
$30k – $250k
~$48,750 to replace a $65k crew lead
Industry estimates span 50–200% of salary — about $32,500–$130,000 for this role.
How we calculated this
An estimate: the salary you entered × a conservative, industry-specific replacement factor, shown as a range because published figures vary. Sources:
WIMBY structures it as a documented, objective program — a different legal position than an ad-hoc handshake loan.
Join the founding cohortWhat this changes for you as the owner
Five specific things you get that a holiday bonus or a 401(k) match doesn't deliver.
“The team was confused why it was on their W-2.”
Cash bonuses and most gift cards are always W-2 taxable — and your employee finds out at year-end. The forgivable-loan structure puts the right withholding on each tranche as it vests, so there's no surprise in January.
DIY 0% loans expose you to phantom interest. Yours is set at the IRS minimum.
§7872 deems a below-AFR employer loan to be paying foregone interest as W-2 wages every year, whether cash moved or not. WIMBY applies the IRS's minimum allowed rate — the AFR — at origination so the phantom interest is the smallest it can lawfully be. Your CPA reviews the per-period rate before each year's payroll.
You get a documented program, not a paper trail of a guess.
Promissory note, AFR snapshots, vesting schedule, W-2 wage events ready for payroll, quarterly summary line-itemed for QuickBooks reconciliation — one objective rule applied the same way every time, with the record to show it. Your accountant reviews and signs off — no two-week wait, no rebuilding the math from scratch.
Forgiven principal is a deductible business expense, not a gift out of your pocket.
Each year a tranche vests, that amount flows through payroll as W-2 wages — which means you take a §162 wage deduction on every dollar you forgive. Same net cost as a cash bonus; spread over five years instead of one.
Something you can quote to the candidate, not just to the person already on payroll.
A hospital system can outbid you on starting salary. They can't offer a five-year vesting loan that ties your senior clinician to your clinic. You can — and you can say so on the first call.
What WIMBY isn't
- Not a benefits platform — we do one thing.
- Not investment or tax advice — your CPA reviews; we make her job easier.
- Not a substitute for your attorney — loan documents are attorney-drafted; your counsel signs off.
- Not a way to dress up a cash bonus — cash and most gift cards are always W-2 taxable, and we don't change that.
- Not a loan to you — you fund the principal from cash; we structure, document, and account for it.
How it works
The quiet, one-at-a-time favor is the hardest kind to explain later — to the tax side, or to the next person who asks “why them and not me?” A documented program runs one rule for everyone — the answer’s in the file, not your memory.
Tell us who you want to keep
Share which employees you want to help buy a house — we don't need SSNs or personal financial data. Just tenure, role, and the retention window you're aiming for.
We structure the loan
WIMBY generates the forgivable down-payment loan structure from your inputs, produces the W-2 wage events for your payroll system and the line items for your QuickBooks reconciliation, and provides the documents your attorney reviews. We're the software; your counsel signs off on the legal terms.
Your best people stay
Your employee gets a meaningful down-payment loan that forgives with tenure. You track it all in one dashboard — no spreadsheets, no manual journal entries, no surprise W-2 in January.
Keep the people you can't afford to lose.
Join the founding cohort — we open the pilot to the first 10 owners soon, and you'll hear from us the moment it's your turn.
The first 10 owners get a personal welcome call from me before the pilot opens. Everyone on the waitlist hears from me directly — not a drip sequence. — Damon, WIMBY