Ask HN: Have you ever founded a housing co-op?

Basically I'm a techie living in a high-COL area, with a steady career and job that has shifted to being compatible with remote work. I have a few very close friends who are in the same boat and we're all kind of sick of throwing money away on rent since none of us can afford to own a property with the way the market stands here (and we're not sure we want to stay here anyhow).

We've toyed with the idea of pooling our resources to buy a large house in a low-cost of living city and sharing it. The idea being that the mortgage on a house that costs 2 million should be about equivalent to each of us buying a 500k house (which we could afford individually), and we'd get a really high standard of living and perhaps opportunity for extra income if there are extra rooms we can rent out or opportunities to host events (we're mostly looking at former or current Bed and Breakfast properties with 6+ rooms).

From what I can tell, forming a housing co-op company would be the only way to do it. But I'm reading that the types of loans available to organizations like that are not as great as loans for normal mortgages (ie, need 20% down vs the 10% down that most banks are offering nowadays). That's not impossible for us, but we want to know if there are other ways that doing a co-op could end up biting us.

Has anyone here at HN successfully (or unsuccessfully) tried to form your own housing co-op for a co-living situation like I've described? Where did you start? Any other tips or things we should consider before diving in?