Re: Increase in housing values: A boon or disaster for cohousing? | <– Date –> <– Thread –> |
From: Lion Kuntz (lionkuntzyahoo.com) | |
Date: Fri, 21 Jul 2006 05:03:39 -0700 (PDT) |
I look at the mail once a week or so, and flag those I want to answer. Then, I might not get to answer right away, so if the discussion has moved away, c'est la vie... --- Rob Sandelin <floriferous [at] msn.com> wrote: > ... Cohousing units that originally sold for under $100,000 are > going > for $250,000 and more. It is one thing to be able to afford a place > at > original buy in but with the escalation of real estate values it is > altogether another thing to be able to buy a home even a couple of > years > after construction. > > It is a double edged sword, in that first time buyers, when they move > on, > want to maximize their ability to buy another home, thus the higher > the > price they can get for their unit the more house they can buy > elsewhere. I > could not afford to buy my current home at its appraised value, but > should I > sell someday I would have to move away from the area unless I was > able to > get the appraised rate, since all the surrounding housing in the area > is > doing the same jump in price. > > So is affordability a one time thing for first owners? "Affordability" is a vague and elusive term best not used. Under a different paradigm people should be living much higher quality of life as presently available. Housing should have an expectation of 100 year lifespan, which means some of your grandchildren will live their whole life where you live, and the building will not be falling-down decrepit either. Since that wasn't in your paradigm, it wasn't put in the specifications for your architect to work with and it isn't built into your home. knowing that the building has to stand duty for 100 years changes a lot of assumptions about how it's made. There are a lot of materials choices that won't make the grade. Knowing in advance that routine mainenance will have to happen from time to time, because you can't just throw it away and build another one when internal systems start to wear out, changes some more assumptions about actual construction. If you live in a seismically active, or hurricane or tornado prone zone, and you still expect it to fully function as shelter for 100 years alters some other assumptions. If you stipulate that you will never burn to death in it or sufficate from toxic smokes, and want all recyclable materials without any hazardous wastes at end-of-life, there goes some more common assumption out of the picture. Maybe you would prefer some level of flood immunity? More assumptions gone. This is a truncated subsection of the list of assumptions that you have to get rid of in order to have housing for the 21st century. You have to get rid of the assumptions that flamable, fall-down, disposable, toxic and wasteful housing is something you should own. When you root out all the things that are assumed by the housing you consider normal, what do you have left? I called them "Palaces", luxury living completely compatable with happy, satisfying lives, which are climate regulated in the comfort zone most people prefer and issue forth no noxious pollutions in providing adequate utilities. What does it cost? Among other things, it costs a quarter-year of your life to help build it. Maybe you are rich enough to hire somebody instead, but we won't let you. The "sweat equity" does bring down the dollar costs, but that's only an incidental by-product of it's real purpose, which is to cement bonds between the neighbors and screen out the Ted Bundy's in our midst. By the time you have put in 500 hours building your "co-housing" (in a literal sense) there won't have to be meetings over chore sharing in the future. What does it cost in $$$? That is highly location specific. In more than half of all locations it costs equal to a year's market rate rental fees for the same equivilent floor space in that same real estate market area. That's the buy-in that you never get back until the day you sell your share. On top of that is roughly the same amount again, which you need to pay to buy-in but is returned back to you from income property associated with the project and is paid back in one to two years. On top of that is another sum you decide for how much yourself which takes a structurally sound dwelling and leaves you to do the interior decorating finishes. To try to put dollar figures on the term "affordable" then means a cost of roughly two to three years rental value on the same kind of residential space. If a person is a good saver, then they can pay cash and be mortgage free from the start, else if they are a lousy saver then they need to finance what two years rentals would cost them in the same neighborhood for equivilent space housing, and maybe spread out upgrading their interior finishes over a couple of years. Considering that you are buying (and building) a property that will last 100 years in good shape, and offers a host of pooled amenities which you could never afford on your own, I consider this a concrete definition of "affordable". There's no reason that every mortgage is not fully paid off in five years, even from people who charge it at credit card interest rates. If they can afford to pay rent in that area then they can afford to be home-owners in that area. People can make it as much more complicated as they want to, but that is a choice, not an obligation. Every single human being on Earth can afford good solid, even luxurious in some ways, housing in exchange from the sweat off their brow doing what they do for three years or less of their lifetime, and be 100% mortgage-free at an early date. Besides obtaining housing they will simultaneously acquire income property which will repay them every cent they put up well before the first decade has finished. Show me a better plan and I will be the first one to sign up. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Sincerely, Lion Kuntz Santa Rosa, California, USA - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://www.ecosyn.us/Welcome/ http://www.ecosyn.us/Interesting/ - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com
- Re: "Targeting" the wealthy, (continued)
- Re: "Targeting" the wealthy Martin Sheehy, July 12 2006
- Message not available
- Message not available
- Affordability Chris ScottHanson, July 12 2006
- Message not available
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Increase in housing values: A boon or disaster for cohousing? Rob Sandelin, July 12 2006
- Re: Increase in housing values: A boon or disaster for cohousing? Jim Snyder-Grant, July 14 2006
- Re: Increase in housing values: A boon or disaster for cohousing? Lion Kuntz, July 21 2006
- Re: Thinking outside the box: Targetting Fine Homes that All People Can Afford. Martin Sheehy, July 15 2006
- Re: "Targeting" the wealthy Brian Bartholomew, July 15 2006
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