Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Affordability- long term

[Sharon Villines (sharon]

On the “investment" issue for housing: to view a home as an investment that you 
trade like stocks and bonds or renovate to what is salable can be negative. It 
leaves you without a home. It means you live in your stocks.

For most people a house is their savings. They improve it to meet their own 
needs and don’t plan to sell and buy and sell. But it is still an asset that 
can be an important foundation for a financially viable lifestyle the same way 
a salary or an inheritance does.

So what you agree to now in terms of affordable or limited equity or whatever, 
it needs to take into account your financial situation in 50 years. Agreeing to 
limited equity works if you are paying less each month _and save that money_. 
Otherwise you can end up with too little money to move somewhere else. Ever.

At the age of 60 with no savings in the form of assets or independent income, 
life is tough.

Sharon
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Sharon Villines
Sociocracy: A Deeper Democracy
http://www.sociocracy.info