Its time to disrupt the housing market.
Image courtesy of Pixabay
I have to move again because the owner wants to install his sister in the flat.
Renting means having to move at the owner’s whim. Each time I have to move its costs upwards of a thousand dollars. Every year or so I read an article where a corporate type suggests buying a house is a bad idea and you should just rent and invest instead. This might be good advice for those on a high income and in certain circumstances but generally speaking is terrible advice.
I am not suggesting that borrowing from a bank and sending 30 years to pay it back is always a good idea.
In fact, the idea of entering into an agreement when one party can change the details at any time seems outrageous to me.
The Murdoch press always goes on about tightening your belt and forgoing smashed avocados and coffee. But for most people that’s irrelevant. On my current salary if I spent zero on living I could buy a house in 20 years. I’m just an ordinary fellow and there are many in my position.
50 years ago a man could easily buy a house on a median wage while raising a family. Now even with two adults working and the children being relegated to spare time it is becoming impossible to own a home. So rather than whinging about my situation I am looking for a solution for the problem. I don't have answers but I have a few ideas.
When the game is rigged there are 3 ways to win
- Own the game
- Don’t play by the rules
- Change the game.
It is time to disrupt the housing market. Lets change the game to a fairer one. They are always more fun.
So many things have changed in the last few years. Often by using unused possibilities to disrupt established markets. So Uber and AIRBnB took unused assets and connected people together. Uber got greedy though and lost a lot of goodwill.
How can we change housing? Well certainly public housing, interest fee loans etc would help as could adjusting immigration. But how about some new thinking?
How can we disrupt the housing market?
New ownership models.
While there are alternative ownership models such as community and owning in common and strata title each of these has problems and I think its best to have outright ownership with the caveat that they cannot be on-sold, similar to government housing.
If we create a crypto based co-op then the houses could only be surrendered back to the co-op or perhaps swapped with someone else in a different location.
New funding models.
The point here is to keep it all out of the clutches of banks and as much as possible for profit enterprises. One aspect of this could be to keep these houses out of the market. Homes are for people. The full cost of houses is paid by the first owners. Perhaps its best to prevent resale. This should destroy the housing market.
There are already more houses in Australia than needed. While most people cannot afford houses many are kept empty and used to hide profits from crime as Australia has lax ownership laws. Houses are also used for creating profits for a few while others go homeless. By reducing the value of these wasted homes, we can free them for people to live in them. I am aware that this would not be easy to achieve. The construction industry is notoriously powerful and corrupt and basically own the government.
Perhaps we need a more achievable goal.
How can we fund building of cheap functional homes? There have been ways in the past like Star Bowkett and the early building societies, like in “It’s a wonderful life” but they have all long since been neutered and co-opted. So some way to pool money and resources without it being stolen by CEOS and executives and board members.
I think this is where cryptocurrency could come in but I am not sure how. At the moment it is mainly used for speculation and the creators of currencies and miners and early investors seem to own outsized shares and people who already have money are the ones with most to invest.
So a crypto currency where everyone involved owns an equal number of shares which they can only see as a whole in which case they are out. People who are needed to design the currency and mine it etc would be paid a single share like everyone else or straight wages out of the common fund. If the mining could be useful work as in Gridcoin even better.
The goal being people could trade their share for a home.
New materials, production and techniques.
Public domain plans and co-ordinating with university architecture departments. Natural materials rammed Earth etc. Use of industrial building techniques for housing. Use of novel materials. So by looking at both traditional and alternative building techniques and also with the most modern materials and industrial building methods costs can be slashed.
Shared labour models.
I was inspired by the Amish with their barn building. Of course, it’s not just an Amish thing but everybody coming together and helping each other. Work gets done quickly and cheaply. There’s a song that made me think about this again and inspired me with the idea and joy of shared work.
Raise that Barn by the talented Daniel Ingram.
As machines take over so much paid work that leaves a lot of unused labour to create and share.
Thank you for reading these are just ideas to get the idea out there.