Cohousing-L Mailing List: Divorcing Housing from Investment

[William New (wnew]

> On Oct 19, 2015, at 5:46 PM,David Mandel <dlmandel [at] gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> There's no reason cohousing communities could not be organized as limited
> equity co-ops, in which members own equal undivided shares of the whole
> project with a right to occupy their units; or with community land trusts
> owning the land.

This is a very common ownership/financing vehicle in San Francisco, where 
multi-unit residences are co-owned by several owners who are Tenants-in-Common 
(TIC), often a first step toward dividing the property into separate 
condominiums (though not always):

http://www.andysirkin.com/HTMLArticle.cfm?Article=1

> or with community land trusts owning the land.

Another common approach in more rural areas where each family/tenant/occupant 
"brings their own house”, (typically a “tiny” house) clustered around a primary 
commons house, generally one of the original buildings, often accompanied by a 
barn or other facility:

http://www.tumbleweedhouses.com


> Either way, greater affordability can be assured permanently -- with 
> different variations on the themes dictating the degree. The tradeoff is to 
> divorce, in part or fully, actual housing from speculative investment

This separation is wise from several perspectives, especially in volatile 
housing markets where housing prices go up AND down.  Speculative “investment” 
generally presumes that asset prices will rise, creating a capital gain for 
retirement or rolling over into an even bigger bet on another house.  Alas, 
this approach is fraught with danger — witness the housing meltdown of the last 
decade.

A growing fraction of the American public (especially the young and old) are 
eschewing ownership and prefer to rent or find another path to housing.  Their 
investment portfolio is apart from their residence — though conceivably some 
part of that portfolio may be in housing elsewhere, e.g. Real Estate Investment 
Trust (REIT).  The demand for new house construction has taken a serious hit as 
increasingly folks prefer to rent rather than buy.


> a cultural obstacle for most choosing communities so far thanks to our 
> psychological conditioning and class identities.

As we move forward into this next century away from unsustainable 
resource-consumptive high-carbon consumer-based capitalism, this conditioning 
and identity personified in Boomers will die out, to be replaced by a more 
eco-sensitive social/collaborative model of Millennials:

http://www.goldmansachs.com/our-thinking/pages/millennials/index.html?

http://www.brookings.edu/blogs/brookings-now/posts/2014/06/11-facts-about-the-millennial-generation
 



> Having a decent, safe roof over one's head is a human right and shouldn't be
> commodified for profit. Of course that applies to many other things that
> are also privatized in our society. More power to any millenials and any of
> us oldsters who aspire to change this.

The post-WWII generation did not view an automobile/truck as an investment as 
their parents did, but rather saw a new car as a depreciating asset to be 
disposed of well before 100,000 miles use (the upper limit when I was a boy).  
Today cars last 2-5X longer, and the car industry has suffered.  Aggravating 
their problem is the reluctance of Millennials to purchase cars, but find 
alternative transportation modalities often involving sharing (e.g. Uber, Lyft, 
ZipCar, etc) or public transport.

Thus the “conventional” models of home ownership and car ownership (as well as 
land ownership, beach ownership, even aircraft ownership) embraced by Boomers 
are shrinking quickly.  The American flavor of private property (that underlies 
American capitalism) is crumbling in the 21st Century where/when it results in 
a 1% aggregation of wealth.  Co-housing will also be impacted, probably sooner 
than “conventional” housing.

=== Bill

William New
StillCreek Commons
94062-0951