Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Divorcing Housing from Investment

[Elizabeth Magill (pastorlizm]

We can surely make better models of many things. But the examples given are 
"within a closed system" better models. In all of these cases, if you ever want 
to leave the system the question is: do you leave with enough so that you can 
find housing elsewhere?
And if you ever want to enter the system (buy-in, or rent-in, even) than what 
do you need.

The question that started this was about creating less expensive homes. Someone 
suggested along the way a solution for keeping prices low by sharing the homes, 
but did so by some sort of setting aside the original cost.

The original cost of my home was decided by dividing up the actual cost of 
construction. I will be satisfied if the market sets my home price at about the 
amount I still owe on my loan, plus enough to put down on the next house. 

The only way I'm going to let you set that price lower than that is if you give 
me money in its place. 

Because if I choose to leave the coho system, I've still gotta live.

And i don't live in a world where I can be guaranteed that my job will stay in 
one place, or even exist.

-Liz
(The Rev.) Elizabeth M. Magill
www.ecclesiaministriesmission.org
www.mosaic-commons.org
508-450-0431




On Oct 20, 2015, at 8:50 AM, Jerry McIntire <jerry.mcintire [at] gmail.com> 
wrote:

> 
> One can only hope Bill. And build alternative models.
> 
> Jerry McIntire
> 
> On Mon, Oct 19, 2015 at 9:52 PM, William New <wnew [at] stillcreek.net> wrote:
> 
>> 
>> 
>>> 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
>> 
>> 
>> 
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