OLOS Impact’s Plan to Rework Development from the Ground Up to Offer A Faster Path to Housing

OLOS Impact is an AI-powered multifamily and mixed-housing development firm, driven by the ambition to make housing available and affordable, at scale, starting in Los Angeles. The combination is designed to streamline feasibility, design and investment analysis. Its projects are rooted in a partnership model with churches and faith-based institutions, where underutilized land becomes the basis for new residential communities without requiring those organizations to assume development risk.

“Affordable housing doesn’t really matter if it’s not available. We call it attainable housing, which is available and affordable. That’s really our priority,” says founder Christopher Montes.

He brings 15 years of real estate, finance, and banking experience across New York City and Los Angeles to the company. Those years gave him a clear-eyed view of where housing development breaks down.

The first bottleneck, he observed, was preliminary feasibility analysis. He explains that determining whether a project is financially viable, whether it can attract investor capital, often consumes two to three months and the salaries of several analysts. The second bottleneck he points to is escalating land costs that he believes can make the development of a housing project nearly impossible without government funding in major cities. He also highlights that capital uncertainty further exacerbates the problem. OLOS Impact was formed to address those constraints directly.

The company’s proprietary AI platform functions as a full real estate development team compressed into software. According to OLOS’s experienced engineering and tech development team, it analyzes zoning regulations, building density rules, housing overlay policies, tax law, and construction costs, all of which contribute to producing feasibility studies and investor return models in a short span of time.

The platform, Montes highlights, is self-learning, growing sharper with every opportunity it processes. The first version is live, and version two, which will extend access to real estate agents, brokers, real estate developers, and lenders evaluating loan decisions, is slated to launch later this year.

Land strategy forms the second pillar of the company’s model. Churches represent one of the largest collective landholders in the United States, owning approximately 2.3 million acres of land. Yet Montes argues that much of that land remains underutilized due to the church’s limited access to development capital or expertise. OLOS, Montes notes, partners with churches directly to preserve ownership while enabling construction.

The concept is structured around two models designed to suit different risk profiles.

The first is a joint venture, in which the church and OLOS co-own the land and the development asset. In this process, the churches can retain equity in the development, participating in ownership and long-term cash flow. “We want to do right by the church. We sit down with them, understand their vision, their pain points, and help them solve those,” Montes says. This approach, he believes, can offer potential upside to the performance of the asset.

A second model establishes a long-term ground lease, where the church continues to own the land and receives fixed annual payments, potentially creating predictable income over time. “This model aligns with those who are risk-averse and seek a fixed annual rent. They can know what they’re getting every year for as long as possible,” he explains.

Each option is designed to accommodate different institutional priorities. Some partners may favor stable, long-term income, while others may prefer to share in the financial performance of the project. Both approaches are designed to reduce upfront land acquisition costs, so that more capital can be directed toward housing itself.

Once partnerships are established and capital is secured, projects move through a standard development lifecycle. Montes notes that permitting can take up to twelve months, depending on jurisdiction, followed by construction timelines that range from eighteen to thirty-six months depending on project size. The developments include apartments, condominiums, and larger community-oriented projects designed to support daily living with integrated amenities such as grocery stores, pharmacies, and electric vehicle charging infrastructure.

Montes highlights that OLOS is currently raising early-stage investment capital which will support the company’s growth and platform development.

OLOS’s initial operations are concentrated in Los Angeles County. Expansion plans extend beyond this first phase, with the company preparing to scale its platform across major metropolitan areas in the United States. According to Montes, the broader objective is to enable the velocity of housing by utilizing technology, while making informed investment decisions.

OLOS Impact presents a model grounded in operational efficiency and aligned incentives. Faster feasibility, reduced land costs, and structured partnerships can offer a framework that can be applied across multiple markets which may generate above market rate returns. The approach, Montes notes, remains focused on execution, with each project shaped by practical constraints and measurable outcomes.