Then organise the renters, let them buy the house to transform it into syndicate or cooperative housing. Social apartment construction isn't impossible.
The issue here is, in my country at least, the people who could possibly afford to buy one aren't wanting to live in an apartment and the people who live in apartments aren't capable of buying one.
yeah the apartment I rent, bills are already separate so it wouldn't be that different. We'd still all be paying the water company and power company. And for garbage. Like we already do.
I guess I would've thought that the collective unit is in charge of stuff like property taxes, but you can't have that many names on a property deed, right? Or can you?
That seems to be what's going on The Arconia apartments in Only Murders in the Building (in New York). They have a coop board, drama over who is the president of it, people not able to pay taxes on their apartment, auntie sold the apartment, now I have to move, etc.
I only the know the version of that in Germany and Austria where the property is being held by a GmbH, similar to a LLC, whose half owned by an e.V., a registered voluntary association acting as the united juridicial person of the inhabitants and half owned by a syndicate e.V. that acts as insurance and solidarity among the syndicate and makes sure that no one can overtake and profit from the property. Inhabitants pay off rent-like loans and but can leave anytime. Rent is usually really low and acts as solidarity towards other houses.
I get that my text came off as sarcastic. I wasn't being clever.
Let me retry:
I think it sounds like a great idea but I have concerns such as, who will pay the community bills? Who will be in charge? And other related administrative duty questions.
Right, well again refer to the fact that this is a solved problem in many countries, including the US. Housing co-ops consist of a nonprofit cooperative organization that owns the building and then residents own the right to live in an apartment, which comes with a monthly fee for maintenance and voting rights within the co-op.
It's the same principle as HOAs owning and maintaining common infrastructure, just within a single building rather than a group of houses.
Not necessarily i don't know about the situation all arouns the world but in atleast the herman speaking countries we have the concept to buy flats like one would buy a house and own it. So not all of it is owned by the same person. You still have the house maintainer which looks after the infrastructure but afaik you don't pay them rent.
Yeah I'd say it's pretty normal all over Europe, it might just be a common case of Americans being weird.
The type of arrangement I'm used to, property of the building is shared among the owners of the flats, who vote on how to run it in an assembly. They also appoint (and pay for) the maintainer you spoke of, but their role is more centered on overseeing/administering the building, handling paperwork, hiring contractors and such. Also, even for very large flats you end up paying a couple hundred euros a year for their services, so it hardly compares to rent.
Canadian condos are like that, generally individually owned and there's a condo board made up of residents that deals with management of the building. I don't know of many buildings that are mostly owned by corporations in Toronto.
We have em in the US too. They're called HOA's. Most get a bad wrap for being ran by shitty people/busybodies with nothing to do but fine other homeowners. All condos have em here.
The problem, in the US, with the picture is that a condo would cost you pretty much the same as a house with a yard so why opt for the condo at all. If they were cheaper I would own one to live in now VS just trying to save to buy a house since they're all expensive.
Right? And the only thing adjacent to an apartment that you can own is a condo, which you still have to pay rent for, plus buy the damn thing, and on top of it all, you get to be forced into an HOA.
Maybe in the US. In Germany this defintly isn't the rule. Many people own their own flats and a lot of people own 2-4 flats to rent them out as an extra income.
No, maybe you are in a more wealthy environment. It is not possible that everyone has multiple flats to rent out. In fact, Germany has one of the lowest ownership rates.
But it is defintly not a given that an apartment has to be the tool of a slum lord, the way they portrayed it to discredit the idea that appatments are a more sustainable way of living...
Apartments can be owned by the people who live in it and this is quite common in many countries.
If one person rents out 4 appartments, that means that at least 4 others do not own their home. It's the same with houses of course.
Germany is just a particularly bad example unfortunately. Low ownership is a problem because it increases wealth inequality, which is also worse in Germany than many other nations.
Low ownership is a problem because it increases wealth inequality
True, but even here their statement that "all of those apartments are owned by one person" is far from a given. Especially with new developments this is rarely the case, even here.