Cohousing-L Mailing List: RE: Cohousing and THEY as is THEM

[mtracy (mtracy]

I thank <biow> for his thoughtful reply to Craig Willis's earlier posting on 
the difficulty of getting the financial institution to assume the risk of 
cohousing.  In the future, would you include a signature block, so I can use 
your real name?

The financial straitjacket is real.  Those of us with children will be 
spending about $250,000 per child over a twenty year period.  Those of us 
with mortgages will be spending about $500,000 over roughly the same period.
Those of us with salaries will find that taxes + housing + children will 
consume almost all of our money, leaving little for optional spending.

To make matters worse, those without children or mortgages will still spend 
most all their salary on work, image, speculation.  The average life savings 
of a 50 year old American is about $200.

In our consumer-television-advertising driven culture, we will almost always 
choose to increase our expenses until they equal <or exceed> our income.

>Commiditization puts products within the reach of people who otherwise
>couldn't hope to afford them. You may always choose to purchase outside
>the commodity market. Feel free to assemble your own computer from scratch.

Commoditization puts products within the reach of people who neither need the 
product nor can afford the product, but buy it anyway.  

>But if so, be prepared for the costs.

(Be afraid, be very afraid. ;-)  The monetary cost would probably be less, 
not to mention the acquisition of skills, the gain in confidence, the 
satisfaction of a job well done.  It would be even better in a community, 
where available skills might ensure the success of the endeavor, and where 
the tools and final product could possibly be shared.

>We have a remarkable system in this country, in which people can purchase
>real estate worth as much as three times their annual income, with as little
>as three to five percent cash down payment. This is remarkable--you should 
>hear the jealousy in my Turkish friend's letters when I tell him how easy
>it was for me to buy a house. 

You should hear my jealousy on how easy it is for my Tunisian friend to build 
a house.

>Through most of history and in most of the world, this is impossible. 

A discussion on the history and ethics of owning land would be appropriate 
here.

>Before rocking that boat, be very sure why your idea is better. 
>Realize that investment economics is completely unforgiving
>of "neat ideas" and wishful thinking.

Too bad.  Ideas like <cohousing> and <living lightly on the earth> can only 
be realized through existing financial institutions if they are economically 
viable right out of the box and are cast in economically palatable forms.
--
Martin Tracy          mtracy [at] netcom.com          Los Angeles, CA