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

[Jerry McIntire (jerry.mcintire]

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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