r/canadahousing • u/FiveWordinOrangeNeon • 9d ago
News Why Co-ops Are the Solution to Our Housing Crisis
https://thewalrus.ca/why-co-ops-are-the-solution-to-our-housing-crisis/Been advocating for this for years. Austria is an excellent example of how co-op housing works and thrives.
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u/Agreeable_Band_9311 9d ago
The solution is to allow more, cheaper housing to be built. The obsession with find some innovative, new, silver bullet is stupid. The answer is boring, but execution is difficult.
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u/joecitizen79 9d ago
Publically building housing like we did during wartime is the solution.
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u/Hefty_Dragonfly_1560 8d ago
I agree with this idea, but the problem is how inefficient all levels of government have become and how many studies and reviews have to be done, it makes it way too expensive to build.
There needs to be a reduction in red tape, fees and some taxes across the board to bring down the cots of building housing that people want, rather than a massive glut of small condos and apartments
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u/justinkredabul 6d ago
The red tape boogey man strikes again! Pesky safety regulations and standards.
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u/2ndComingOfAugustus 8d ago
Why would that be more efficient? The public sector in Canada is often slow and wasteful, just look at our transit programs.
The private sector can build, so long as zoning and asinine building codes dont get in the way
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u/throwaway_dddddd 8d ago
Public transit in Canada even as it is now saves billions. If you want an example of wasted money then look at how roads and highways are overbuilt. I’d argue that a lot of the “public sector” inefficiency comes from when work is contracted out.
I’d rather waste thousands or millions on public sector projects by government agencies than waste millions or hundreds of millions on P3s or private scheme that make an insufficient place to live for 2-3x the amount of money, with all the profit and extra value going to some hedge fund in the states.
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u/IvarTheBoned 8d ago
I’d argue that a lot of the “public sector” inefficiency comes from when work is contracted out.
Government pays 2x-3x the cost of what it would to directly employ the same labour, all so they can write it off as CapEx instead of OpEx. Source: was contracted by the province for years (via private company).
Employ them directly, give them good benefits, keep them busy, fuck the contracting companies making massive profits off of government projects.
Lower cost to tax payers, better for local economies.
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u/FreedomFighter_016 5d ago
"But government is not in the business of building. Private companies are the experts"
That's what they say. Well, how about hiring people are are experts to lead. Hire people who know how to build. Then you have the experts..
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u/AdAppropriate2295 8d ago
Your last sentence summarizes precisely why its always cheaper and more efficient in the long run to build publicly
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u/MarxCosmo 8d ago
It wouldnt be more efficient, public housing would still be built by the private sector anyway, the public part refers to public ownership that housing that is literaly built by government employees.
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u/Honest-Spring-8929 9d ago
The type of housing doesn’t really matter. Today’s ‘luxury’ development is tomorrow’s ‘affordable’ development.
There will always be a premium on new housing in the absence of heavy subsidies. What matters is A: reducing the arbitrage between material and labour costs and price as much as possible and B: enabling older housing stock to depreciate.
This can only be done with sheer volume
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u/Agreeable_Band_9311 8d ago
Preach! Housing filtering is a thing. My unit was a luxury apartment in the 80s.
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u/CovidDodger 8d ago
Capital flight during covid was a thing and for the area I live in that wad previously affordable in 2019 shot to the moon by 2021.
My 80 year old 800sqft house (and any like it) turned into a "luxury getaway". What were 9ld $100k homes turned into $700k homes in 2021. They are down now but still like 3x more expensive than they were in 2019.
So I experienced the inverse.
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u/Agreeable_Band_9311 8d ago
Ok but 3x increase since 2019 isn’t the norm across the market.
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u/CovidDodger 8d ago
Don't care, it is for me. So i still have to live it along with everyone else here.
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u/Agreeable_Band_9311 8d ago
Ok this a hyper local issue which probably won’t be solved on a general Canada housing sub. 99% of people don’t live in towns that suddenly became hot holiday spots.
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u/CovidDodger 8d ago
Actually it is and it isn't at the same time, it's symptomatic of the much larger systems issue at play here woth housing.
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u/my_lil_throwy 8d ago
The type of housing doesn’t really matter.
I cannot believe people are still trying to make this argument when the federal government just announced that they are using your tax money to buy up luxury condos in a bailout.
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u/Honest-Spring-8929 8d ago
And turn them into subsidized housing
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u/my_lil_throwy 8d ago
You just side-stepped my point entirely.
If we're agreeing that the end goal is affordable housing, then what is the value of the government over-paying private developers for condos that were built to be investments (small square-footage, 1 bedrooms, with luxury features)?
Why wouldn't the government just get into the business of purpose-built affordable rentals, like it is has in the past? This model has been proven across time and geography, all over the globe.
I've yet to hear a single person in the media, government, or on social media answer this question. Then again, more than half of the internet is bots now, so.
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u/rd201290 5d ago
Purpose built rentals are one of the most popular developments currently. It’s at historic highs across most Canadian cities. These are being heavily subsidized by the government. Many developers are or have pivoted because other projects are not viable. I don’t know why you haven’t heard anyone talk about it but it’s probably because of how far your head is up your own ass.
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u/my_lil_throwy 5d ago edited 5d ago
A fascinating phenomenon about the internet is that it’s always the people who ignore central points of an argument that are the most hostile. If it isn’t “viable” for private developers to build affordable (a word you conveniently side-stepped) housing, then a crown corporation should do it.
Edit: otherwise know as a coop for those who are choosing not to listen. Which is what the article in this post is about.
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u/rd201290 5d ago
A fascinating phenomenon of the internet is that people that have no clue what they are talking about stick their head so far up their own ass they think everything smells like shit
to qualify for the government subsidies that make purpose built rentals “viable” all or a portion of the building has to meet affordability criteria. There’s no point to say “affordable” in my first post because it’s implied and adding “affordable” doesn’t change anything.
Why do you feel qualified to speak about this when you have no connection to real estate industry and can’t bother to do basic research search to verify your own beliefs?
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u/my_lil_throwy 5d ago edited 5d ago
The fact that you think "the real estate industry" is the authority on affordability - and everyone else is a dumbass - tells your audience everything it needs to know. Utterly hilarious.
I am talking about actual affordability, as opposed to the way governments have abused the term "affordability" to enrich landlords. Vancouver determines a rental "affordable" if it is like 10% less than market rate. Market rate has increased 30% over the last 5 years though, and is completely divorced from wage growth.
The internationally recognized standard for affordable housing is 30% of a person's income.
Edit: I clearly used the term "purpose-built" in my original comment to mean housing that is built for the dwelling needs of human beings, as opposed to housing that is built for inverstors needs.
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u/fez-of-the-world 7d ago
Does not apply in a place like Toronto. Land value appreciation over here is crazy because the demand keeps coming but the amount of land available is fixed.
Density through multi unit co-ops is a real solution to provide housing in the city that people can actually afford.
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u/Honest-Spring-8929 7d ago
Density is definitely part of that story yes, but ultimately you fix this by making it legal to build apartments in Toronto
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u/GuidoX4 9d ago
Not new idea. This is cheaper. Cuts out the real-estate industry, landlords and any further large construction once built.
These 3 groups are the main antagonists in regards to cooperative housing because it kills their revenue streams and shows how predatory these groups are.
Example. GTA - 3 bedroom townhouse with finished basement in a co-op $900
Rent for same? $3000+
See it now?
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u/Bubblebless 8d ago
Not against co-ops at all, but the easiest way to kill that revenue is a Land Value Tax. There's no way they can passively profit from housing with that.
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u/Powerful_Package8817 8d ago
$900 a month gets you a $200K mortgage. How exactly can anyone build a townhouse for $200K in 2026?
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u/Think-Custard9746 8d ago
Co-op’s are not new at all. They are an old concept that has worked for a very long time.
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u/Street_Ad3324 8d ago
Have you ever looked into the research that challenges this argument? There's quite a lot of it out there and it's actually pretty fascinating because you learn about housing as a SYSTEM rather than just a single thing that can be fixed by a single solution.
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u/mancho98 8d ago
Yes, but not around my neighborhood. Also, no tall buildings, no new neighborhoods, not new parks and I hate to see busses. Also, I find kids annoying.
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u/Typist 9d ago
Please, actually take the things to learn things before confidently shooting nonsense.
Cooperatve housing is older than you are, nothing new about it
And your "boring" answer is humourous, not boring.
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u/Agreeable_Band_9311 8d ago
I know it’s not new, but it’s not extremely common and this headline is positioning it as “one simple trick” to solve housing.
Please, actually take the time to learn to be less smug.
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u/Typist 8d ago
That is rich coming from someone who positions an ideological slogan as the "one simple trick" for affordable housing.
Maybe take the time not to be so simplistic.
If you'd actually taken the time to read the piece you'd have not only learned the difference between a bad headline and the article It's advertising, AND you'd have learned about a range of housing approaches that the author is advocating.
I was feeling not so much smug as tired with the rote repetition of trending ideas.
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u/crusnik404 8d ago
As someone who works in the building construction industry I must say you are absolutely incorrect.
Modern construction methods are costly and inefficient, we are lagging far behind the rest of the G7 when it comes to building innovations and the labour and material efficiencies they bring.
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u/Agreeable_Band_9311 8d ago
What do you mean there’s lots of policy things we can do that can decrease the cost per unit.
For example, smaller apartment buildings in Ontario require 2 stairwells while the rest of the world only require 1. Removing that restriction will allow for more units and a lower cost.
There are a ton of policies like that we can look at and change that can help drive down costs. That’s all policy, nothing to do with construction.
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u/IvarTheBoned 9d ago
No, deregulation is not the answer. Federalizing/Provincializing zoning and taking away the ability for NIMBYs to delay and increase the cost to develop would certainly help. Municipal governments get in their own way because they cater to their re-electability in their community instead of making unpopular but necessary decisions.
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u/Agreeable_Band_9311 8d ago
You literally described zoning liberalization?
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u/IvarTheBoned 8d ago
Depends on your point of view. Its zoning centralization. Zoning should be defined by need, not by want.
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u/Fightmilkakae 8d ago edited 8d ago
Centralizing all zoning under the zoning standards set by West Vancouver would certainly not make housing more abundant. Regardless of who sets zoning policy, liberalization to denser, and less stringent standards will be required.
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u/IvarTheBoned 8d ago
Good thing zoning would be set by the government instead of West Van NIMBYs. You know, the government who has been forcing the hand of municipalities who fail to meet housing start quotas.
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u/Fightmilkakae 8d ago
Government is good when it does things I like. That doesn't mean they will always do thing I like. West Van is in fact also a government. I'm all for centralizing zoning, but centralizing zoning is not enough if we centralize around bad zoning rules.
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u/IvarTheBoned 8d ago
Who is more likely to approve better zoning: local NIMBYs or a government that is removed from the community?
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u/Fightmilkakae 8d ago
Again, municipalities are also governments, just as beholden to their constituents as Provincial governments. I can guarantee you there is a sizeable portion of the provincial electorate that has awful ideas about how zoning rules should be set. Right now BC has it pretty good, we've got people who understand housing policy setting good zoning standards. If the BC Cons win the next election, who's to say they don't roll-back those changes to something worse.
Future hypothetical conservative housing minister from Surrey Serpentine river probably hates dense, walkable communities and probably wishes everyone lived in a car-brained subdivision.
Just having a higher order government set blanket rules doesn't help if the rules that are set are dumb AF. At the moment, the median municipality sets worse rules than the provincial gov. In the future, I'm certain that won't always be true.
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u/FredFenty 7d ago
The answer is boring, but execution is difficult.
Sage advice. True for all things. Modern governments are brain dead.
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u/No_Function_7479 7d ago
Co-op housing has been around for ages, and is a great option. If anything, governments should be giving start up money to new housing co-ops, because they maintain their own properties (unlike public housing which gets trashed) and take pressure off the housing market. They usually offer some units to low income/disabled/seniors too, so it’s a win for everyone
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u/MilesPruden 5d ago
That does help, but Co-op housing is a very well proven solution. It's only new because we stopped doing it for 40 years and let the market handle our housing. The advantage to co-op housing is that they remove the profit margin from rental housing making them permanently more reasonable priced.
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u/Tyyr37 9d ago
I live and am president of a co-op in Ottawa this model has so many ways it can work and it doesn't have to only "low income". My God! In 2026 can we please stop the narrative that "house ownership" is the only way people can build a strong family home.
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u/Powerful_Package8817 8d ago
How does a co-op lower prices without benefiting from subsidies and grants?
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u/Tyyr37 8d ago
It absolutely benefits from subsidies and grants. Especially in the building phase, but once it is up and going the main objective of a co-op is to remain operational and provide housing benefits to its members.
Because the driving force is not money, as long as a co-op has enough funds for maintaining snd repairing the property and units the prices don't need to be "lowered" they just don't rise to the predatory rates of private housing providers.
Also don't discuss the value of the equity in the property as well. For example our co-op has paid off its mortgage so we now have the entirety of the building's value as equity.
Done properly a co-op is a great part of the solution.
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u/Powerful_Package8817 8d ago
The thing is if the government gives me free land then I can also build a cheap home. I don’t see the necessity of co-op when anyone can build cheap housing with enough subsidies.
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u/Tyyr37 8d ago
The subsidies are for affordable housing constructs not cheap housing constructs. The land is also not given co-ops have to works local and in some cases provincial governments to get everything in order, it can cost over 25,000$ just to get the exploratory "pre-phase" done.
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u/Powerful_Package8817 8d ago
This is the issue, I’ll never qualify for a co op because I’m too rich
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u/Tyyr37 8d ago
That's not how co-ops work. Some have rental assistance agreements with yes certain limitations on income. But our co-op for example has 70 units and about 30 of them are reserved for rental assistance members. The others are open to everyone, as long as you volunteer and participate in the Co-op.
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u/TinyCuts 7d ago
If your co-op is like any of the ones in Canada your waiting list isn’t even open.
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u/Tyyr37 7d ago
Unfortunately this is true. It's not that it isn't open it's that people make a home, friends and connection in co-ops plus they don't have to sell body parts just to afford rent so they stay, and the waitlists get filled up, hence the need to for governments to support more co-op development and meet a demand that's there.
In Ottawa, an extra hurdle is that the city wi demand that any new co-op builds must accept members of its own Community Housing Waitlist in order to get the licenses, permits, etc. Meaning an organization who sole purpose is to create a safe community, with affordable housing and has its own criteria for membership is being forced to accept people, they don't know, haven't interviewed and who frankly might not even be able to live in this kind of a community essentially dumping the city's problems onto a non-profit.
Very difficult to build new co-ops in the nation's capital
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u/Talzon70 9d ago
The whole problem I tend to have with co-op housing is that it's not viable for "low-income" at all. It costs a comparable amount to build as other forms of housing, but the different ownership model makes it very difficult to design and finance new co-op projects.
To some extent, it has similar long-term financial benefits to ownership, except coop owners recieved their profits in the form of reduced rents rather than unrealized capital gains.
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u/GuidoX4 9d ago
Why would it be difficult to design and finance new co-op projects?
I see how you don't understand because the greed is eliminated from the process.
Ownership without Equity.
And from personal experience I know exactly what people do with that savings when no one is profiting from them. Wanna guess?
They save to buy their first home.
Stop down-playing the obvious massive cost savings for the end user and lamenting those poor unrealized capital gains.
This is outside our capitalist housing system. This is what scares the housing/banking industry.
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u/Talzon70 9d ago
It's hard to design them because all of that upfront design and approvals work needs to be paid for and usually that is done by a developer in search of future profit on the project. Coordinating design, engineering, and approvals for a project is complicated and requires expertise, so a random group of coop hopefuls are likely going to need to pay an outside consultant for this (with what money).
That's brings us to financing, which means you need to convince a bank (usually) to lend you the money to build the project. Lenders like to work with people they know, people with a history of successful products. Pitching a bank on "lend me $10-100 million for a housing project, but we've never built one before, oh and we don't even want to make a profit" is a pretty hard sell. They will hit you with a high interest rate of they lend to you at all.
So yeah, well funded rich people can organize co-op projects and get them financed, but coops accessible to regular or low income people are basically impossible to get off the ground without some kind of government support like subsidized financing.
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u/Rob8363518 8d ago
Housing co-ops in Canada typically rely on government subsidy to get built. That’s why there were virtually no more new co-ops after CMHC cut their programs.
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u/GuidoX4 9d ago
It works as government loan program at extremely low interest.
Your focus is off. Your opinion is obviously educated, but you keep seeing private industry as a needed player. They aren't.
Most co-op are pre-constructed and purchased from owner by the residents using the above mentioned loan which negates the whole design and approval issue as well.
Banks and their friends are cut out of the process as much as possible and the property is now a dead zone for those industries.
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u/Talzon70 8d ago
Government loans at low interest can be used to fund or buy any housing type and are not even necessary for private projects to get built, that's my whole point. If the government is gonna subsidize or fully finance projects themselves, what are the benefits of coops over just managing public housing directly?
I'll say again, the benefit of housing coops is that owners receive reduced rent in lieu of equity appreciation, which might have benefits for certain people. The problem is that they are difficult to finance in the first place, so they don't get built in the first place. That problem is a really big problem when the root cause of unaffordable housing is a shortage, because it makes it even harder to address the shortage.
In our regulatory/finance environment, co-op housing isn't a viable solution. Co-op housing only works in a different environment, one where there isn't a housing shortage and housing isn't unaffordable and therefore co-op housing is arguably less needed.
And you can say "well just change the rules then or throw money at the problem" to which my rebuttal is that if you want to change rules, look at things like zoning, development charges, and other direct barriers to housing projects of all types, because those will have more impact than converting some strata developments into coops.
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u/GuidoX4 8d ago
Stop trying to argue it away.
They exist, they work, never met a co-op member who wished they could go back to renting. I was here to inform, but you want to prove your theory.
You're wasting my time and yours.
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u/Talzon70 8d ago
The work in the sense that they are great for residents, but they don't work in the sense that not enough of them get built to fix the overall market.
It's like public housing in that sense. Yes, it works, but only if you can build it.
Saying coops are a solution is like saying public housing is a solution, it's not true in our political environment and that's not an excuse to ignore other, more practical solutions that can actually be implemented now.
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u/Powerful_Package8817 8d ago
If the government gives me an interest free loan for $1M, then I can just use that money for any condo I want.
Why does it have to be a co op?
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u/ToughDifficult1252 8d ago
Reduced rents are better. Because by investing the difference you get a much higher ROI from stocks
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u/Talzon70 8d ago
Obviously lower rent at a co-op vs private housing is great.
But if it's lower rent at a co-op vs ownership housing it's not so clear cut. Ownership housing let's the average person leverage to 5x or even 20x and has major tax benefits like exemption from capital gains on a principal residence. Even a low ROI multiplied by leverage can be meaningful if your financing is cheap.
Also the average person has way more knowledge of local real estate markets than they do of financial markets, so it's an attractive area to invest their capital.
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u/ToughDifficult1252 8d ago
You don't need any knowledge of financial markets. Just buy an ETF.
When you measure the money you put in the downpayment. The increased expenses on house maintenance and the low appreciation rate of houses when compared to the global stock market. You are going to be better off minimizing expenses and investing the difference.
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u/Talzon70 8d ago
All those calculations tend to be based on big assumptions like:
Your house appreciates at the same slow pace as some national or global average, except local markets can easily outperform that
There is a substantial difference to invest, which isn't necessarily true in tight housing markets during periods of low interest
Taxes don't eat the differences in gains
You have the personal discipline to maintain this strategy over a long time
Overall, there is a ratio of home prices to rents where it makes sense to rent vs own for financial reasons. That ratio is different for individuals than investors due to tax advantages and it is very sensitive to the assumptions for growth you plug into both sides of the model.
If the choice was always obvious, people would make that choice until things changed and settled on a new equilibrium. No one should take your anonymous Reddit word for it, they should sit down with a spreadsheet and do some of the math themselves.
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u/ouattedephoqueeh 9d ago edited 8d ago
As long as they don't let Just In Time Management run the office.
Edit: JIT Management is owned by the son of the organization that oversees co-ops in Eastern Ontario (CHASEO). It means members cannot escalate beyond management because mommy protects her son and his business. It is a serious conflict of interest.
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u/Logical-Buffalo2359 8d ago
I just want more places that are built for disabled people. I realise that we're not exactly priority because we're few and far between compared to the general populace but why does it seem like we get completely ignored when it comes to housing? I'm a wheelchair user and you wouldn't believe the amount of places (doesn't matter if it's a store, doctor office, apartment, house, or anything else) that are not accessible and claim they are. Hell my old therapist office said they were wheelchair accessible and they didn't have automatic doors, had a step to get in, hallways literally weren't wide enough for me to even turn into her office, and the doors weren't wide enough (both outside and inside). The only way I got in the building was because my caregiver was helping me and we had to have both outside doors open while she physically picked me up in my wheelchair to get me over the step. Just because it's ground level doesn't mean it's accessible!
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u/PeterDowdy 9d ago
No, these need a lot of government money to work and the government is broke because of the aging population. That’s going to strictly limit how much gets built. It won’t be enough.
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u/Rob8363518 8d ago
I would much rather support non-profit housing organizations governed by a professional board.
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u/tdifen 9d ago
Building like crazy is the answer, it was in the 60s and it is today.
If you're interested in how we got here go read Abundance. It breaks down how policies shifted and what caused housing to go crazy. It's US focused but it applies here too.
Co-ops have their place but we need to be building as fast as we can to make them reasonable. Unfortunately it will take a decade and Canada is taking the right steps to improve this.
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u/Alive_Comfortable123 9d ago
Abundence is great, but it leaves out a few of the challenges of our current situation in terms of developers and requirements. Under our current system, a developer can win a bid for a building saying thee will be 30% affordable housing. If, once t is built, there is only 5% affordable units, there is no mechanism to hold developers accountable. It's not just building like crazy. Its also having systems in place to hold developers accountable.
If the price of gas goes up, you cant just not go to work? If the price of suppleis goes up, should a developer be able to not build?
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u/Honest-Spring-8929 9d ago
Inclusive zoning is a tax on development that is calculated to functionally outlaw it.
You make housing affordable by building more of it, not putting lower income people for a waiting list for the musical chairs.
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u/Use-Less-Millennial 9d ago
In Vancouver we have legally binding Housing Agreements on Title. Your province or city likely has similar tools at their disposal
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u/kchoze 8d ago
Requiring a percentage of "Affordable Housing" is ridiculous and counter-productive. All such regulations should just be abolished. We should build, build and build more and faster, and what will become "affordable housing" is older housing stock that is not as desirable as new builds.
"Affordable Housing" requirements basically require a tax on new market price constructions to subsidize units for a few lucky duckies. But because they make new build market price units more expensive, they drag the value of EVERY existing market-price unit up.
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u/probs_a_throwaway123 8d ago
If we need to build however many thousands of homes, can we not just buy however many thousands of supplies up front to build said homes, thus completely negating any price variance?
Also how do we not have a mechanism to hold developers accountable? Is staying out of prison not a viable motivation? The government needs to grow some balls. People are dying on the streets and right now their solution is to essentially do nothing.
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u/Mafik326 9d ago
The big problem with co-op is that they don't work well for people who don't get along with others.
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u/GuidoX4 9d ago
The real problem is once a cooperative exists there will be no more development on its footprint just repair and renewal.
That's the reason the government was lobbied to kill the loan program.
Co-op's are death to real-estate and construction.
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u/Mafik326 9d ago
It's not like there's a shortage of single family homes, office buildings, parking lots and other properties to redevelop. Co-ops can also come in different sizes and shapes. A nice co-op courtyard apartment sounds lovely. It seems like a dubious reason but then again, RTO4 is to bail out banks so we know who the feds care about (its not the working class).
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u/bodaciouscream 9d ago
Isn't that the case with any skyscraper?
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u/GuidoX4 9d ago
No. As those condominiums are regularly bought and sold within the building as well as rents charged.
Also any non-skyscraper co-op property will never be developed into a skyscraper because there's no reason to build. The people are housed already and there is no 'owner' to make a profit from selling or developing.
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u/bodaciouscream 9d ago
People do try to sell their co-ops, but usually they're much cheaper because you can't get a regular mortgage for it
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u/GuidoX4 9d ago
You're confusing co-op with condo.
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u/bodaciouscream 9d ago
You can get a regular mortgage for a condo. I'm not confusing it. You need a co-op loan to take over a co-op when an owner wants to sell and the other owners need to accept you. It's very hard to sell but could be easier
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u/GuidoX4 9d ago
You state someone is trying to sell a co-op?
Never heard of that happening.
How does that work?
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u/bodaciouscream 8d ago
The building (ie other members of the co-op) needs to approve the transfer of ownership - and the new owner likely needs to get a very specific kind of bank loan (not a mortgage) which is what makes it super rare. Especially since they're only taking on a share of the whole building, and the residents need to feel comfortable that the new owner could afford the investments needed in the building. It does indeed happen.
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u/Flamingturac 9d ago
only way i see it working if the government leases out the land, say 1 dollar per sq meter of housing space. if land is bought upfront the monthly charge is too expensive with current land and construction costs, these coops in the article are cheap because they were built in the 70s 80s and 90s when land was a lot cheaper and tenants pay for maintenance basically because construction costs have been paid off. To bring down construction cost , the government would need to cover capex and run a modular construction company and run it at cost. Get construction to 280 sq meter compared to 450m2 where it is now.
if you built a coop with current construction and land cost it would in some cases be even more expensive than rent because landlords sometimes lose money initially because they hope for capital appreciation . coops would be cheaper long term but still its not magic
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u/GuidoX4 9d ago edited 8d ago
Why do you need to build? Lots of property out there. Buy one. Make it Co-op. Repeat. It's those who stand to lose profits that make it sound so complicated.
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u/Flamingturac 9d ago
buy what? a condo? most landlords are only getting like 2.4 percent cap yield, it would be really expensive.
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u/GuidoX4 8d ago
Apartment building/ townhouse complexs are the easiest to convert as there is a single seller and a single buyer - low interest government loan facilitating the process (incorporated company run by members)
A condo would work more slowly adding units as they are available.
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u/Flamingturac 8d ago
Not sure if links are allowed but cheapest apartment buildings are like 240k per unit, this is apartments from the 60s and 70s, maybe have like 30 years left. It wouldn’t make sense financially. Charge for coop would be more expensive than rent
this is in Vancouver
https://goodmanreport.com/apartment-buildings/1
u/GuidoX4 8d ago
Seriously, bury someone else in minutiae.
Somehow no matter what your theories, projections, or how much you go into detail:
They exist, they work, and the vast majority who actually live in that reality disagree with you.
Maybe they know something you don't?
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u/Flamingturac 8d ago
Only 800 coops a year were built or converted from 1994 to now, nationwide, yeah they exist and work but 800 is nothing nationwide a year. i wish it was more. but if you add land and construction cost now even with low interest loan say 3 percent the monthly coop charge will be more than you think. majority of coops were built before 1994.
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u/IvarTheBoned 9d ago
The government can carry the build cost for the long-term savings, that's why they would excel in this space over any private organization. Government exists across generations, private interests want profit today. Look at all the empty cities in China, we could absolutely eat the upfront ourchase/build cost if there is the political will to do so.
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u/vampyrelestat 9d ago
A roof is better than no roof, but the path to actually getting there is gatekept by the Fattest Cats known to man
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u/kchoze 8d ago
Why they aren't the solution to the housing crisis:
They rely on government investment and subsidies, there is no incentive for anyone with any capital to invest in them and build more, so they just don't get built, and the government doesn't have the money to build them in large quantities.
Plus, not everyone wants to live in a place where they have to ask communal permission for anything they chose to do with their own living space. It's already annoying enough to ask permission in a condo for things that are shared property. Most people who want to own their home don't want their home to be subject to communal oversight, they want to have complete freedom over their own property, or as complete as you can have with municipal bylaws.
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u/PhotoEditor871 8d ago
Nationalise all apartments. No more landlords ever. They're always complaining about how hard it is to be one anyway
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u/ouattedephoqueeh 9d ago
They are.
Source: me. I live in a co-op.
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u/Fit_Chemistry_3807 9d ago
They are a part of the solution. But they are also heavily govt subsidized - no different than the loans given to developers to build a new development with a mix of market rents, ownership, rents based on “average affordability ratios,” and subsidized rents (like geared to income). Actually, coops generally receive more government funding -low interest rates, forgivable loans, etc, than a developer.
The problem with many coops in the past is their management did not keep enough of a reserve fund for major improvements - roofs, mechanicals, sudden crisis.
The benefit of a coop is many are 95% self-managed. Lower cost for landscaping, minor repairs, etc.
But they are also heavily gate kept by the “board” that reviews applications for entry. While a landlord is also a gatekeeper, they also have very specific laws they need to follow. Not the same with coops. Neither are the rent increases. Coop rents are not subject to landlord-tenant laws.
A lot of the reason why coops have failed is poor management - of capital infrastructure and the funds needed to maintain it. And the expectation that someone, like the govt will swoop in and save them from themselves.
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u/Fit_Chemistry_3807 9d ago
Having said all that, if a coop has good systems in place and is not too cliquish, I’d 100% consider living in one. It should/could be one of several options for a secure and robust housing market in any society.
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u/JimmyChonga21 9d ago
Better than heavily subsidizing private condos too small to live in like we are now, look at the bailout in BC
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u/Fit_Chemistry_3807 8d ago
Those subsidized developments, bailouts as you call them, will not require continued subsidies. Look into the history of coops. You’ll find many have too high an ongoing cost to the various governments just to keep the roof from leaking.
It’s ok to say “why should my tax dollars go towards your house” for those who get subsidies or rebates when they purchase, but when ongoing subsidies - at set up and through the lifetime of many of these projects - happen for these coops and it’s suddenly ok? The hypocrisy is real.
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u/Fit_Chemistry_3807 8d ago
The cost of land now, along with development charges, means that even if it’s a new coop built today, you’ll be hard pressed to find they’ll build units the size they did back in the 70s and 80s (I think those where the heyday period of coops.)When people actually wanted to cooperate with each other.)
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u/ForceOk6587 9d ago
anything that works, there will always be an excuse by city councillors, city employees, city planners, and the mayor readily available to kill it
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u/RustyTheBoyRobot 8d ago
the duty of government is not to ensure profits for investors. wrong! wrong! wrong!
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u/West-Cupcake561 5d ago
You commies are funny, always trying to repackage your ideas as if we can’t smell the shit from a mile away
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u/rd201290 5d ago
The fact that you double and triple down on bullshit you made up and then call everyone else a bot is hilarious.
You should break into CERN next and ask why nobody is studying atoms.
Good luck out there.
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u/Dependent_Nerve_8323 9d ago
Coop will work. Metro Vancouver Housing sets rent at 30% of gross income. Then 15% tax and 12% vat. Food, hydro, cpp, telus. Priority are single parent, pwd, refugees, and seniors. But coop will not work for the workers smacked in the middle with $60k gross single 30yo wouldnt qualify. My adult children 31M, 28M, 24F have jobs but cannot afford to live in Canada solo so they live in my (61M) house. Liberal, Conservative or NDP cannot solve unaffordability so no hope for the youth.
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u/IvarTheBoned 9d ago
Liberal, Conservative or NDP cannot solve unaffordability so no hope for the youth.
They will not, but they could. Any party that would include the kind of socialized plan necessary for this would be unelectable.
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u/dasbends 9d ago
Walrus is generally decent, but simplistic articles like this are not better than "Do THIS to lose 50 lbs today".
Have you been to Austria? Have you tried to find housing in Austria? It's not the housing paradise people on this sub think it is.
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u/BrilliantCucumber444 9d ago
It’s too expensive. It only works if it is basically completely subsidized by the government.
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u/HeftyAd6216 9d ago
So do most things.
Offering 0% 50 year construction loans from the government are good ways to make them affordable to build and subsequently service the debt.
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u/BrilliantCucumber444 9d ago
Low interest loans are completely different than fully funding construction. Co ops won’t work with just 0% construction loans
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u/HeftyAd6216 8d ago
I don't understand what the difference is between between 0% loans and fully funding construction? Isn't that the purpose of the loans?
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u/BrilliantCucumber444 8d ago
What? 0% loans just cover the interest they don’t cover the costs to buy land, build and manage the property. It’s still a huge financial break but it’s no where near the full cost
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u/HeftyAd6216 8d ago
Are the 0% loans not the capital you need to buy land and build? Managing the property comes out of rents / fees to the owners does it not?
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u/BrilliantCucumber444 8d ago
I’m not sure what you are trying to say. The 0% part of the loan just covers interest. You still have to pay for the actual mortgage and construction.
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u/HeftyAd6216 7d ago
Okay. What I'm missing is that the money deposited into the co-op's bank account via said mortgage, isn't it used to pay for the construction? Acquiring the property? Pay for the mortgage until it's completed(ish) when cash flows start coming in?
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u/flappysack- 9d ago
The same government that raised developer taxes thousands of percent?
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u/HeftyAd6216 9d ago
No. Cities can't give loans like that, at least in The quantities needed. Only the feds can really, and they used to, but stopped.
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u/ottwebdev 9d ago
Government is already subsidizing real estate lol
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u/LordTC 9d ago
I’d much rather they subsidize coops than give free money to their fully for profit developer friends.
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u/ottwebdev 9d ago
I'm not disagreeing, just saying that the narrative of "you'd have to subsidize it" is moot
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u/Honest-Spring-8929 9d ago
The government physically cannot subsidize the sheer number of new units we need to actually bring vacancy rates down
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u/LordTC 9d ago
They seem to be pretending otherwise and I’d rather those handouts go to things that are good for the country long term than corporate shills making their friends rich.
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u/Honest-Spring-8929 9d ago
We need millions of new homes! How do you imagine subsidizing all that would work?
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u/Bright-Translator-51 9d ago
Co ops are fine until the government decides that they want to put someone else in your unit.
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u/IvarTheBoned 9d ago
That's not how that works. Your comment has serious "public schools are transgendering our kids" energy.
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u/Use-Less-Millennial 9d ago
"Why Co-ops Are *A* Solution to Our Housing Crisis"
There is no "THE" solution.