Stop wasting your- rent - set up housing Co-operative

PasturesNew

Lord_Baltimore wrote: »

Yes, the conceived whilst on LSD variety of colour scheme .

Lots of that there... the particular night of the party I'd been invited and took my mate there - she fancied a lad that lived there and was determined to have a bit of action .... he'd taken acid. She had her action, but he had no recollection of it, or anything, at all afterwards.

It was, in fact, where you went for drugs in that part of town in the early 80s.

Having seen it all in operation, I knew I'd not want to live in such a hellhole.

I was introduced to a few of the residents in the doss-hole pubs off Mill Road, the places outsiders didn't go to after dark .... and I was introduced by a hells angel friend and an axe-attacker. Nice people ..... nice while they were smiling. This lot would turn on you for sixpence if they were up against it.

mohawk

Lord Baltimore,

I presume you are a troll as what you say is so childish. But on the offchance it is just plain ignorance and general lack of education I will answer your point & explain in a really simple way anyone can understand.

A housing co-op is a legal entity with a 'legal personality' just like a limited company, or indeed, an ordinary private individual who just might happen to be a private landlord.

So this co-op thingy takes the place of a private individual or limited company
and it buys and manages homes which it lets to it's tenants who are also it's members and who also run it.

Now, pay attention because this next bit might be difficult for you to understand.

When a tenant loses interest and leaves the co-op, Lo, the co-op has a vacant home to rent to anyone who wants to rent it at what is likely to be a much lower rent than most homes are rented for by greedy private landlords. That new tenant then also becomes a new member of the co-op.

So the co-op will have absolutely no difficulty at all in renting out vacant homes because it will always be a much better deal than from the horrible and rather nasty buy to let market.

Lord_Baltimore

mohawk wrote: »

Lord Baltimore,

I presume you are a troll as what you say is so childish.

How rude. Let's debate this further and I'll try to impress you.

But on the offchance it is just plain ignorance and general lack of education I will answer your point & explain in a really simple way anyone can understand.

Please don't apologise for your ignorance and lack of education. It's self-evident.

A housing co-op is a legal entity with a 'legal personality' just like a limited company, or indeed, an ordinary private individual who just might happen to be a private landlord.

So this co-op thingy takes the place of a private individual or limited company
and it buys and manages homes which it lets to it's tenants who are also it's members and who also run it.

Thingy? Explain thingy and don't use such big words.

Now, pay attention because this next bit might be difficult for you to understand.

I'll try.

When a tenant loses interest and leaves the co-op, Lo, the co-op has a vacant home to rent to anyone who wants to rent it at what is likely to be a much lower rent than most homes are rented for by greedy private landlords. That new tenant then also becomes a new member of the co-op.

So the co-op will have absolutely no difficulty at all in renting out vacant homes because it will always be a much better deal than from the horrible and rather nasty buy to let market.

I geddit, I geddit! You can't afford to buy a house on your own can you mohawk and it makes you very angry?.

Yep pasturesnew I've been to several of 'those' parties. I distinctly remember thinking 'mama told me not to come' on more than one occasion. I'm still alive though

Running_Horse

I came across a coop in East London in the 80s. Took temporarily empty flats from the council (awaiting refurbishment), and members would have a place for weeks or months. It was usually grotty, but no doubt served it purpose. Some were even given permanent council tenancies. In an area with a large Bangladeshi community, members were exclusively white middle class Home Counties and guilty, but despite much hand wringing never managed to persuade any minorities to join.

Lord_Baltimore

Perhaps the East London commune was bereft of the "vibrant personalities and creative views" that are the specified qualities for a successful hippy love-in?

It must all feel like being in a 1960's time warp.

jjlandlord

A cooperative is an association of people who cooperate for their mutual benefit.
As such there cannot be a cooperative of 1 house with 1 tenant. Obviously.

I think that for housing it is complex to setup, operate, and finance. You need people with a long term view and who are heavily involved in the ideal, not just random people who want to "save rent" in the next couple of years until they can buy their own place.

There is already a crowdfunding website offering just 3.5% interest to the public wanting to lend it to private landlords which the website will charge the landlords about 5% for.

So I lend to that site for 3.5% and they in turn lend to someone else at 5%?
Now they have found a good business.

Mrs_pbradley936

The only way I could see it working is if was run like a kibbutz. What we are really talking about is having the advantages of Social Housing (lower rents, longer tenancies).

However, private landlords are in the business to profit - they are not Social landlords. They do not act out of a spirit of altruism.

The would be co-ops have a problem in that they cannot afford to buy multiple properties and charge low rents. If they could the government would have cottoned on and there would not be a shortage of affordable housing!

booksurr

mohawk wrote: »

I would like to set up a housing co-op but still haven’t found anyone bright enough to want to join me.

Can anyone explain why ?

as an opening post is it any wonder no one wants to join you when you come across so patronisingly

the "bright" people are already involved as per the links provided by GM

all you seem to be interested in is promoting a crowd funding website in which you may or may not have a personal connection since you have also mentioned the same place in your other thread about investing

as for your attack on Lord Baltimore - it seems you have little experience in group dynamics and how collective decisions can be (but not always) taken poorly when there is disparity in the calibre of people comprising the collective

mohawk

blog post oct 11 2014

jjlandlord

I can't believe the negative, defeatist mentality of so many people in this country. Is this an embedded feature of the British psyche ? because it seems to be so common.

I have not written about or otherwise suggested a household of one person as comprising the co-op. Neither do I suggest a shared house full of hippies with purple walls all high on acid or skunk.

Housing Co-ops already exist all over the place. They are common in the USA and in Sweden where the normal method of renting is for a tenant to rent from a corporate landlord which is a type of co-op and profit is returned to the tenant who can therefore build a deposit for eventual purchase.

Anyway, there are some housing co-ops in the UK too. A small management team, sometimes paid employees rather than existing tenants, run the administration, and most tenants just behave like tenants anywhere and have little or nothing to do with the day to day management issues. Tenants can take as much or as little interest as they please. All they have to do is pay their rent - just like any other tenant.

But the difference is, tenants of a co-op get a much better deal. More stability of tenure - they won't be arbitrarily evicted by a poisonous landlord and they will get a share of the the profit in the form of lower rents or an accumulated cash pile to buy their own house at some time.

It is no more complex to and set up & run than the average limited company.

It is no more 'just random people who want to "save rent" in the next couple of years until they can buy their own place' than any other person either renting a home from a landlord or even buying their own home.

Why would you want to be so negative - unless you just like wasting time on websites.

By the way. I have been a landlord myself for about thirty years.

mohawk

booksurr wrote: »

as an opening post is it any wonder no one wants to join you when you come across so patronisingly

the "bright" people are already involved as per the links provided by GM

all you seem to be interested in is promoting a crowd funding website in which you may or may not have a personal connection

as for your attack on Lord Baltimore - it seems you have little experience in group dynamics and how collective decisions can be (but not always) taken poorly when there is disparity in the calibre of people comprising the collective

You’re quite right I suppose, I shouldn’t have opened with the comment that I can’t find anyone bright enough. But I said that out of some exasperation that a considerable effort I have already made has only turned up trolls, or people who are so ‘precious’ they take imagined offence at almost anything their fevered brains can conjure up.

Some adverts in one or two places also only turned up an assortment of dimwits and hippy types who said things like they would grow veg and do the gardening in lieu of rent or generally expected a commune idea where everyone was permanently high on skunk & acid, and painting the walls purple etc.

And so far, here, all we have is a collection of people carping in snide ways about what a stupid idea it is.