Re: Affordable housing
From: Sharon Villines (sharonsharonvillines.com)
Date: Thu, 8 Sep 2016 06:17:17 -0700 (PDT)
> On Sep 7, 2016, at 11:30 PM, Reede Stockton <commercial [at] willriley.com> 
> wrote:
> 
> yep, that's the $64,000 question (showing my age…)

Yep. And those isolation booths with headphones.

> I don't pretend to know the answer, but I tend to think alternative
> financing is the key - that's why I think public banking may be necessary.
> Somehow, the cost of the initial investment needs to be spread over a long
> enough period of time that the founding group doesn't sacrifice everything
> for the folks that come along later.

If the homes go at market rate, the initial group doesn’t sacrifice, they 
build. What the initial group builds, including community, translates into 
higher socioeconomic value.

One option would be for an individual to carry the mortgage when possible. In 
other words, allow people and not just banks to finance cohousing. I remember 
in the 1950s, my grandparents driving “out to the lake” to pay their mortgage 
payments. The previous owners had retired and moved to the small house they had 
built there with a fishing dock. The monthly income was more important to them 
than a bunch of money in the bank. The worst that could happen if my 
grandparents defaulted on the mortgage is that they would get their house back.

This would reduce costs just in eliminating all the rigamarole that mortgage 
brokers and banks add to the process. Though many people would need the lump 
sum to pay off their own mortgage and to buy a new home, not everyone does.

Sharon
----
Sharon Villines
Takoma Village Cohousing, Washington DC
http://www.takomavillage.org





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