I feel like this article could do a better job comparing renting and buying a home, so here's a video I think makes some good arguments about why it's not such a clear decision.
Fascinating article. Let's work through the business plan. If it takes say a $2 million loan to acquire land and build units for 100 families that pay $1000 monthly, that's $1.2 million a year in rent at 100% occupancy. I dunno what annual expenses would be for staff, maintenance, vacancies, legal/accounting services, and so on, let's say maybe $700,000?
So you'd have $500,000 a year to pay down your $2 million startup loan. Once the loan's paid off what do you do with the $500k / year of rents minus expenses?
The author's answer is to pay it out to tenants. If you simply divide it among all 100 tenants, that $500k / year would turn into a $5000 / year discount -- annual rent goes from $12,000 to $7000, or on a monthly basis it goes from $1000 to $600-ish.
Author proposes something different though: It goes to tenants unequally, based on how long they've lived there. Basically you're charging junior tenants more than the cost of maintaining their housing, and using the extra to pay dividends to senior tenants. This seems a little weird.
Once the rights to those dividends exist, what happens to them? Are the "shares" the senior tenants get transferrable, inheritable on death, forfeitable on bankruptcy? Even if they aren't, what's stopping them from signing away the dividends to a financial firm for a lump-sum payment?
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[ 2.7 ms ] story [ 41.0 ms ] threadhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uwl3-jBNEd4&ab_channel=BenFe...
I'd be interested in seeing analysis of how this 3rd option would historically compare to renting and home ownership.
So you'd have $500,000 a year to pay down your $2 million startup loan. Once the loan's paid off what do you do with the $500k / year of rents minus expenses?
The author's answer is to pay it out to tenants. If you simply divide it among all 100 tenants, that $500k / year would turn into a $5000 / year discount -- annual rent goes from $12,000 to $7000, or on a monthly basis it goes from $1000 to $600-ish.
Author proposes something different though: It goes to tenants unequally, based on how long they've lived there. Basically you're charging junior tenants more than the cost of maintaining their housing, and using the extra to pay dividends to senior tenants. This seems a little weird.
Once the rights to those dividends exist, what happens to them? Are the "shares" the senior tenants get transferrable, inheritable on death, forfeitable on bankruptcy? Even if they aren't, what's stopping them from signing away the dividends to a financial firm for a lump-sum payment?
According to the Terner Center in 2016 in CA the cost per unit was ~ $425k (probably more now) or $42m to house 100 families.
https://ternercenter.berkeley.edu/research-and-policy/the-co....