Cohousing-L Mailing List: Pocket Neighborhood [was: affordable housing

[Fred-List manager (fholson]

Ty Albright <tmalbright [at] verizon.net>
is the author of the message below.  It was posted by
Fred, the Cohousing-L list manager <fholson [at] cohousing.org>
after deleting quoted digest and editing the subject line.

Note that I did edit the first line which originally read "adorable"
to "affordable".
I strongly suspect this was an erroneous spellcheck "correction".



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--------------------  FORWARDED MESSAGE FOLLOWS --------------------
I will share that in the real estate industry "affordable" means
"government subsidized".  So I prefer to use the term "low
cost".

I've studied the low cost housing challenge for some time now since
retiring from big corporate real estate.

The reasons commercial builders don't build more low cost homes is
because there is more profit in big homes.  Municipalities also prefer
big homes because they receive increased tax revenue but have fewer
residents per acre of development that they must then provided
services to.

The reason alternative home construction solutions are not more
prevalent is because 1). Municipalities are reluctant to approve
anything not " tried and true" because of the risk of change.  2).
The home mortgage industry is entrenched on how it underwrites and is
focused on high volume cookie cutter loans and will not take the time
or risk to loan to innovative home solutions.

So 2 key challenges :  municipal / government approval  and
availability of financing.

It will Federal Government legislation to remedy this.

I am in the process of building a 8 unit pocket neighborhood in rural
Oklahoma.  The rural location allowed me to avoid much of the
municipality limitations.  I'm using a "all equity" model of
building then selling one unit at a time so I avoid the cost and
challenge of securing financing ..... and

I'm addressing the "low cost" and "make tradition mortgage
lending available to the homeowners" challenges by building a
quality well insulated but no fancy extras 2 story homes - with a
design that has a fully functional 1Br / 1Bth apartment on the 2nd
floor that could be shut off from the main 1st floor 2Br / 2Bth house
and rented out to a tenant help off-set the mortgage payment of the
homeowner.

Each home has connected  "back yard" space that all combined
together forms community shared space - and there are standards and
other features designed to create a "build it and they will come"
community.  This is all controlled vis deed restrictions and easements
(this is something new that I have not seen others use).

As far as the small town municipality and mortgage lender is
concerned, these  are just basic cookie cutter 2 story 3Br / 3Bth
homes (it's important not to call the 2nd story an "apartment"
because that makes it a "multi family" property in the mind of a
mortgage underwriter).

This is an experiment.... but I am confident it will work and provide
a good housing solution for people who seek low cost living in a rural
location (0.4 miles from the entrance of a national park).

I'm happy to share more as my efforts progress - contact me directly
if you would like more info.


Ty Albright - Treasurer Cohousing Assoc.
tmalbright [at] verizon.net
214-336-7952
Sent from my iPad