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danielravennest t1_j8u13cs wrote

Reply to comment by ShelbySmith27 in New UC San Diego model predicts housing prices to fall as much as 18% this year by Sofie-Forsberggg

I'm working on the idea of "housing cooperatives" similar to how Habitat for Humanity works. You put in some sweat equity and end up with a house a lot cheaper than developer prices.

I've done property development for myself my whole life. That's either upgrading an existing home, or building from bare land. And I did it as a side gig while having a regular day job.

The stuff I can handle I did myself, and hired contractors for the big heavy jobs. It is not that complicated, you just have to show people how and have a plan. You do need some starter capital, at least enough to buy some bare land and put the utilities in, or for a down payment on a "fixer-upper" that you can then upgrade.

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ShelbySmith27 t1_j8u8lty wrote

That doesn't address problem to me though. There isn't enough supply of land or fixer uppers to make these options affordable for most, so it doesn't lower demand, and we don't get lower prices. Your plan obly works if the person has enough capital to buy land or a house, which people don't have

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ThermoreceptionPit t1_j8uhk29 wrote

They could do it through community land trusts, which is basically where a nonprofit owns the land but leases it to the tenants at very low rates with the purpose of keeping housing affordable in perpetuity. One of the ways community land trusts get land is by having rich people donate it to them and then deduct the value of the land from their taxes. One reason coop housing doesn't get built as much (in the US at least) seems to be that coop housing used to get more funding from local governments, but local governments have favored low income rental housing construction for several decades, because of these getting tax credits that housing cooperatives don't.
Limited Equity Housing Cooperatives
Tax Credit

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danielravennest t1_j8wp7xz wrote

> There isn't enough supply of land

I live on the outskirts of the Atlanta metro area. Beyond where I live, there nothing but undeveloped forest. Developers have been gradually buying up and building, which is how Atlanta has grown. My little town has a "seed and feed" store and a Tractor Supply store. Both of those cater to farmers and large land lots, not 1/4 acre suburban. They would not be here if there weren't the kind of owners they cater to.

> Your plan only works if the person has enough capital

I'm an engineer, so I had enough income to do it. But not everyone does, which is why I mentioned a cooperative approach. People pitch in a little bit each, plus their labor, and fix up or build one house at a time to start with. One of them takes out their share and buys it conventionally. The loan proceeds then return the capital to the group so they can work on the next.

If you get one member like myself who has the spare capital, the other members don't have to contribute anything but labor.

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ThermoreceptionPit t1_j8uibp1 wrote

Always thought a kind of massdrop-esque system for people to find places other people were interested in forming coops and try to pool funds to buy land would be neat.

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