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Yeah, housing. It's the big issue of the day here, and you can see how much it affects our culture. Basically we created a mortgage system that only works as
by jayferd 13y ago
Yeah, housing. It's the big issue of the day here, and you can see how much it affects our culture.
Basically we created a mortgage system that only works as long as property values continue to rise, which created a lot of political will behind "improvement" measures like eliminating public housing, like we did in the early 80s.
(see http://www.wraphome.org/downloads/without_housing.pdf http://www.wraphome.org/downloads/without_housing.pdf [pdf] for a fascinating study on the origins of modern homelessness)
I'm doing some experiments with cooperative housing and income-sharing right now, which slightly mitigates my contribution to gentrification, but something else is needed, and I'm not sure what.
- beatpanda 13y agoIf you're interested in cooperative housing and income sharing, you might be interested in this idea - raising money from well-paid engineers for the San Francisco Public Land Trust, in order to create permanent affordable housing (with the added bonus of not depending on the government to manage it) and home-ownership options for low-income families. Email is in my profile if you want to chat.
- rottyguy 13y agoI actually think we created a mortgage system that will keep most people working (income earning) for the majority of their lives (30yrs). Now that our life span is increasing, will the norm be 40yrs?
- jtbigwoo 13y agoYou can get a 40 year mortgage at many banks now. I doubt 40 year mortgages will ever catch on. The banks generally charge a higher interest rate for the longer term so the payments aren't much cheaper than a 30 year loan.