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This does seem very financially risky to me. Yes, they did draw up a deed of trust and they mention that is okay if one of them wants to back out later. But tha

This does seem very financially risky to me. Yes, they did draw up a deed of trust and they mention that is okay if one of them wants to back out later. But that doesn't solve the monthly mortgage cost. Is that person who is "out" still obligated to pay that cost according to their arrangement? Because I can imagine finding another person to sign up to this arrangement could be difficult. I'm leaning more towards stacked micro-houses, aka micro condos, as the "future of housing" in urban centers.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
Cthulhu_ 8y ago
> I'm leaning more towards stacked micro-houses, aka micro condos, as the "future of housing" in urban centers. This is already a thing, it's called coffin cubicles or cage homes: https://www.theguardian.com/cities/gallery/2017/jun/07/boxed-life-inside-hong-kong-coffin-cubicles-cage-homes-in-pictures https://www.theguardian.com/cities/gallery/2017/jun/07/boxed... What I'm trying to say is: No, you should not lean towards this. You should lean towards jobs and opportunities spreading out over the country. To appeal to the HN population, instead of thinking in the binary thought of "SF (or some other tech hub) or fully remote!", consider another option: opening up smaller offices. Bring work where housing is affordable.
- zhdc1 8y ago
  Why not? I don't see any reason why young individuals looking to experience inner city life wouldn't be happy to exchange loving space for easy commuting and urban culture (which is what they already do).
  - EpicEng 8y ago
    >Why not? Because your equity is now at the mercy of other people who you cannot control. No one wants to default on a mortgage.
    - zhdc1 8y ago
      I think we're talking about two different things. The parent comment was referring to micro apartments, which are generally rented to tenants. Considering that many college students have two to four dormatory roommates, I don't see what's wrong with renting a small living as a young adult - provided that the living space itself is up to code.
      - EpicEng 8y ago
        Ah ok, I thought it was the shared mortgage idea. I see no issue with shared housing, not exactly a radical idea.
        ghaff 8y ago
        Shared housing is one thing. Shared housing with which you share major financial responsibility with someone else is another matter. Houses also require maintenance, are often upgraded over time, etc. and reasonable people can disagree about what needs to be done when and how—especially if people have significantly different financial situations.
        EpicEng 8y ago
        I feel like we're going in circles. I said the same thing and was corrected (these are rentals.) I then agree, and you come in saying they're not rentals. Which is it? Here's my stance: Getting into a mortgage with roommates = bad. Getting into a lease with roommates = no problem.
        deleted 8y ago
        [deleted]
        ghaff 8y ago
        I was agreeing that shared rentals are fine. Well, they can have problems too but people mostly manage. As you say shared mortgages seem very risky in general.
- Tharkun 8y ago
  The price of housing is only one factor. You can probably buy a nice, cheap house and open some office in the arse end of nowhere. And then you can spend your day driving around to get basic shopping done. Some cities are certainly more affordable than others, but in my experience they are also much less desirable.
  - clarry 8y ago
    I've lived most of my life in places ranging from a monastery to a town with around 20k people. I never needed to spend a day driving around to get basic shopping done. I now live in a place an order of magnitude larger, but that really does not cut down on the time spent on basic shopping.
- kokokokoko 8y ago
  The issue is that once a job can be done remotely or moved to a cheaper city, it can usually just be moved to a different country where the labor is much cheaper. We will likely not see jobs move to less expensive areas in the US(or any other high wage country), in any meaningfully significant number, because those cheaper areas can never compete with cheaper countries overseas on cost.
  - zjaffee 8y ago
    The big issue with moving jobs to other countries more than anything else is timezones and language. Distributed teams across the US isnt much of a problem, but try working with people that have an 8 hour timezones difference and it's much more difficult.
- scarejunba 8y ago
  Have you done the math for your company? No one I know wants to do that because the talent wants to be where the other talent is. Perhaps you’re targeting the niche who wants to live somewhere as your hiring pool? How has that worked out so far?
- JTbane 8y ago
  > No, you should not lean towards this. You should lean towards jobs and opportunities spreading out over the country. Can someone say 'urban sprawl'?
richthegeek 8y ago
Are these not just "a block of flats" in British parlance? Buildings with 5+ floors containing a variety of single-floor homes between 300 and 1000sqft are the way most people live in British cities.
- scooble 8y ago
  'Stacked micro-houses' are probably related to 'blocks of flats' as 'tiny houses' are to 'mobile homes' - a way of selling traditionally lower class housing to middle-class hipsters.
makerofspoons 8y ago
Micro-houses are the future of housing for everyone. The massive living spaces we have now are not sustainable. By 2050 if we are to avoid 2 degrees of warming we need to be emitting 2 tons of carbon per year per person: http://insight.gbig.org/targeting-2-tons-closer-than-we-think/ http://insight.gbig.org/targeting-2-tons-closer-than-we-thin.... The average American today emits 11 tons, whereas 2 tons per person is closer to that of someone living in Brazil or Egypt. In climates where you need to heat and cool a home, carbon taxes will make heating and cooling the living spaces we have now financially impossible. People will drive demand for these smaller living options out of necessity. Additionally, as we make consumption less and less economically attractive people will have fewer things to want to store anyway, and personal vehicles will likely no longer be something the average person will be able to afford or want so there will be less need for parking and garages.
- flerchin 8y ago
  Can't I just keep my moderately sized home and add solar panels? I would definitely rather do that and bike to the train station.
  - makerofspoons 8y ago
    If we implemented a carbon pricing scheme and these panels allowed you to heat and cool your home with no or minimal draw off the grid, this would be an affordable option.
- refurb 8y ago
  Your 11 tons is total US emissions (including industrial), spread out across the entire population. Of course the US emits 5x that of Brazil or Egypt, the US produces 5x the output. Moving into micro houses isn’t going to cut it, you’d need to slash US economic activity to reduce those numbers (an entire new technology).
  - makerofspoons 8y ago
    Microhousing would be just one development carbon taxing would bring about- if we began to price our food appropriately for example animal agriculture would largely come to an end except for luxuries, and that would do a great deal to cut emissions. Personal vehicles and flying would also become cost prohibitive. These are only a few of the ways taxing carbon could make our lifestyles more sustainable and shrink highly polluting sectors of our economy such that we reach a more sustainable amount of emissions per capita.
thinkcontext 8y ago
> But that doesn't solve the monthly mortgage cost. The space can be rented out to someone else to cover the cost, possibly at a profit to the remaining owners since the renter isn't taking on any risk. The bigger risk in this arrangement is to the party that is leaving since a share of a house is illiquid.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

Cthulhu_ 8y ago

> I'm leaning more towards stacked micro-houses, aka micro condos, as the "future of housing" in urban centers. This is already a thing, it's called coffin cubicles or cage homes: https://www.theguardian.com/cities/gallery/2017/jun/07/boxed-life-inside-hong-kong-coffin-cubicles-cage-homes-in-pictures https://www.theguardian.com/cities/gallery/2017/jun/07/boxed... What I'm trying to say is: No, you should not lean towards this. You should lean towards jobs and opportunities spreading out over the country. To appeal to the HN population, instead of thinking in the binary thought of "SF (or some other tech hub) or fully remote!", consider another option: opening up smaller offices. Bring work where housing is affordable.

zhdc1 8y ago
Why not? I don't see any reason why young individuals looking to experience inner city life wouldn't be happy to exchange loving space for easy commuting and urban culture (which is what they already do).
- EpicEng 8y ago
  >Why not? Because your equity is now at the mercy of other people who you cannot control. No one wants to default on a mortgage.
  - zhdc1 8y ago
    I think we're talking about two different things. The parent comment was referring to micro apartments, which are generally rented to tenants. Considering that many college students have two to four dormatory roommates, I don't see what's wrong with renting a small living as a young adult - provided that the living space itself is up to code.
    - EpicEng 8y ago
      Ah ok, I thought it was the shared mortgage idea. I see no issue with shared housing, not exactly a radical idea.
      - ghaff 8y ago
        Shared housing is one thing. Shared housing with which you share major financial responsibility with someone else is another matter. Houses also require maintenance, are often upgraded over time, etc. and reasonable people can disagree about what needs to be done when and how—especially if people have significantly different financial situations.
        EpicEng 8y ago
        I feel like we're going in circles. I said the same thing and was corrected (these are rentals.) I then agree, and you come in saying they're not rentals. Which is it? Here's my stance: Getting into a mortgage with roommates = bad. Getting into a lease with roommates = no problem.
        deleted 8y ago
        [deleted]
        ghaff 8y ago
        I was agreeing that shared rentals are fine. Well, they can have problems too but people mostly manage. As you say shared mortgages seem very risky in general.
Tharkun 8y ago
The price of housing is only one factor. You can probably buy a nice, cheap house and open some office in the arse end of nowhere. And then you can spend your day driving around to get basic shopping done. Some cities are certainly more affordable than others, but in my experience they are also much less desirable.
- clarry 8y ago
  I've lived most of my life in places ranging from a monastery to a town with around 20k people. I never needed to spend a day driving around to get basic shopping done. I now live in a place an order of magnitude larger, but that really does not cut down on the time spent on basic shopping.
kokokokoko 8y ago
The issue is that once a job can be done remotely or moved to a cheaper city, it can usually just be moved to a different country where the labor is much cheaper. We will likely not see jobs move to less expensive areas in the US(or any other high wage country), in any meaningfully significant number, because those cheaper areas can never compete with cheaper countries overseas on cost.
- zjaffee 8y ago
  The big issue with moving jobs to other countries more than anything else is timezones and language. Distributed teams across the US isnt much of a problem, but try working with people that have an 8 hour timezones difference and it's much more difficult.
scarejunba 8y ago
Have you done the math for your company? No one I know wants to do that because the talent wants to be where the other talent is. Perhaps you’re targeting the niche who wants to live somewhere as your hiring pool? How has that worked out so far?
JTbane 8y ago
> No, you should not lean towards this. You should lean towards jobs and opportunities spreading out over the country. Can someone say 'urban sprawl'?

richthegeek 8y ago

Are these not just "a block of flats" in British parlance? Buildings with 5+ floors containing a variety of single-floor homes between 300 and 1000sqft are the way most people live in British cities.

scooble 8y ago
'Stacked micro-houses' are probably related to 'blocks of flats' as 'tiny houses' are to 'mobile homes' - a way of selling traditionally lower class housing to middle-class hipsters.

makerofspoons 8y ago

Micro-houses are the future of housing for everyone. The massive living spaces we have now are not sustainable. By 2050 if we are to avoid 2 degrees of warming we need to be emitting 2 tons of carbon per year per person: http://insight.gbig.org/targeting-2-tons-closer-than-we-think/ http://insight.gbig.org/targeting-2-tons-closer-than-we-thin.... The average American today emits 11 tons, whereas 2 tons per person is closer to that of someone living in Brazil or Egypt. In climates where you need to heat and cool a home, carbon taxes will make heating and cooling the living spaces we have now financially impossible. People will drive demand for these smaller living options out of necessity. Additionally, as we make consumption less and less economically attractive people will have fewer things to want to store anyway, and personal vehicles will likely no longer be something the average person will be able to afford or want so there will be less need for parking and garages.

flerchin 8y ago
Can't I just keep my moderately sized home and add solar panels? I would definitely rather do that and bike to the train station.
- makerofspoons 8y ago
  If we implemented a carbon pricing scheme and these panels allowed you to heat and cool your home with no or minimal draw off the grid, this would be an affordable option.
refurb 8y ago
Your 11 tons is total US emissions (including industrial), spread out across the entire population. Of course the US emits 5x that of Brazil or Egypt, the US produces 5x the output. Moving into micro houses isn’t going to cut it, you’d need to slash US economic activity to reduce those numbers (an entire new technology).
- makerofspoons 8y ago
  Microhousing would be just one development carbon taxing would bring about- if we began to price our food appropriately for example animal agriculture would largely come to an end except for luxuries, and that would do a great deal to cut emissions. Personal vehicles and flying would also become cost prohibitive. These are only a few of the ways taxing carbon could make our lifestyles more sustainable and shrink highly polluting sectors of our economy such that we reach a more sustainable amount of emissions per capita.

thinkcontext 8y ago

> But that doesn't solve the monthly mortgage cost. The space can be rented out to someone else to cover the cost, possibly at a profit to the remaining owners since the renter isn't taking on any risk. The bigger risk in this arrangement is to the party that is leaving since a share of a house is illiquid.