This article is really low on actual facts about how these co-ops can actually operate.
I feel like the problem in the US isn't necessarily that the government won't directly pay for these kinds of things like they do in Switzerland, but that it's very very hard to finance a co-op, possibly illegal (that is, you wouldn't have the same legal protections a condo does).
I would be curious to see the finances of the buildings they mention in the article. Assuming that you could arrange the two major financial aspects: 1) financing at a level of a normal home loan 2) cut out the real estate developer profit margin, I wonder if a co-op model would become viable in the US.
Edit to add: Intuitively it seems like the math could work out, if you figure that a co-op takes the appreciation of the real estate out of the picture for the people living there, and that being able to rebalance that lost value towards the initial cost or towards future costs would be a trade-off normal people would be willing to make.
In that sense a co-op is more like an alternative to renting rather than an alternative to home ownership.
Note that most people rent, even in the US. They either rent the property itself, or they rent the capital used to buy the property (i.e. a mortgage).
With that in mind, housing associations or co-ops and the like take the place of banks, that is, they possess the capital and rent the property to the residents, but keep a portion of the revenue for future renting, as a bank does for future lending.
The difference between the two is that the housing association is typically not-for-profit, and that in a housing association the resident does not accumulate capital, which allows for a reduction in costs compared to a mortgage.
I don’t have any numbers to counter whether it is typical of “most”, but when trying to buy, I was outbid several times by people who paid “in cash”, and that was for million+ dollar homes. So it might be they do “rent” the capital, but possibly from a source other than a bank (eg from their forgone returns on stocks instead)
I think one way forward in the US is for a housing association to get the ability to have a mortgage that is a government backed housing loan, with a favorable interest rate. afaik right now that's very hard to do.
I think San Francisco has something like this with their Below Market Rate (BMR) housing program. You have to be below a certain income to be considered, and basically you get to pay a fixed monthly rate to "own" a place that can only be sold for a fixed amount. It always just sounded like rent to me.
I think that NYC's co-ops (TICs in San Francisco) provided an interesting alternative model. They usually require owner-occupancy, can't be rented easily, and are difficult to finance.
These restrictions eliminate investors and speculators, and shields the the units from the inflation that happens from fed intervention and super low rates.
The result is that they're usually priced a lot lower and appreciate more slowly than they would be if they were condos.
TICs are a scam though. They are just condos with less legal protections for the relationships between the tenants. They don't solve any of the cost of ownership issues or deal with the idea of appreciation of the value of the real estate. afaik it's actually much worse because you're combining the appreciation of the asset, but you can't sell as easily as with a condo.
There’s a number of these types of co-ops in NYC although these are due to government legislation and I do not know if there are any less than decades old.
his apartment ... two bedrooms, a small office, a
south-facing balcony and it costs 1,760 francs
(about $2,200) a month, around half the typical rents
I always find it impossible to grasp/compare rents if there is no mention of the size of the apartment. For all I know, this could be a 60m² apartment with 3 smallish rooms which goes for something like half of that price in Berlin:
It's all fun and games, but you need to remember that this is Canton Vaud, one of the most fiscally irresponsible cantons/states in all of Switzerland. The article briefly mentions is, but a lot of this "cooperative" housing is heavily subsidized by the canton itself (the article mentions the cheaper 99-year lease but it goes way beyond that) and the resulting shortfall in money is paid for by other people (i.e 100,000CHF yearly income in Vaud is the massive marginal tax wall in Vaud). I've still, to this day, not managed to find out any detail about how these apartments are valued for the purpose of the VD wealth taxes (You can impute house price based on comparatives or rent, here obviously rent would be lower).
This has nothing to do with Vaud fiscal irresponsibility. Cooperatives are all over Switzerland, very common in Zurich for instance they own 18% of the units.
I don't have any specific knowledge of Swiss co-ops, but I'd imagine it's some of the same reasons as other co-op buildings elsewhere: economic crash means residents can't pay rent or fees, improper budgeting for large future expenses that eventually come due, or poor construction or new safety requirements cause a huge expense.
In Florida right now, in the wake of the Surfside disaster, a lot of condos are struggling with solvency because of the cost of the new safety requirements. Then there is always new technology (asbestos, aluminum wiring, spray foam insulation, polyurethane cladding) that will one day have to be remediated. Then there is climate change.
I think the key is good management and good construction. Unfortunately, both of those things are very opaque for your average person.
The issue with them is that the loans to build the properties are socialised, so if the other members can not pay the debt, the entire loan is the responsibility of those members who can.
Also, the incentives of a cheaper than market rate flat, means that corruption and nepotism is rampant in those buildings.
This is purely anecdotal, but I find that the buildings with professional management and purely renting tenants, look better and seem more well kept, compared to the smaller "Andelsforeninger" where its a volunteer management team trying to run it.
> Also, the incentives of a cheaper than market rate flat, means that corruption and nepotism is rampant in those buildings.
Maybe there's some middle ground between socialized housing that incentivizes people to take advantage of overly cheap housing, and a 100% capitalist USA style housing market where lots of people are 1 missed paycheck away from being homeless.
Maybe there is, but human history proves we can't easily reach a equilibrium where everyone has it equally good, due to human greed, envy, cronyism and corruption, making any kind of equality just a fairytale utopia.
So we just bounce between extremes because as always, few people strive have it good and the rest get screwed over in order to pay for the privileges of the select few. There will always be haves and have-nots, no matter how many thumbs the government puts on the scales to try to balance things out for everyone which only breaks things for the worst as they distort economic reality.
Meanwhile from the numbers I gathered, despite the "evil capitalism", statistically by most metrics, Americans enjoy the highest purchasing power for home ownership in the developed western world by a large margin. So Americans love to complain too much, but the truth is by the numbers, most of the world has it much worse than they do.
1. Demographia International Housing Affordability | Lower median multiple = higher affordability (2025 Edition)
Singapore 4.2
United States 4.8
Ireland 5.1
Canada 5.4
United Kingdom 5.6
New Zealand 7.7
Australia 9.7
2. World Population Review: Housing Affordability Index | Higher index = higher purchasing power (2024 Data)
United States 3.3
Denmark 2.1
Belgium 2.1
Ireland 1.8
Luxembourg 1.8
Norway 1.7
Sweden 1.7
Finland 1.7
Spain 1.7
Netherlands 1.7
Germany 1.5
Switzerland 1.5
3. Numbeo Property Prices Index | Lower ratio = higher affordability (2025 Mid-Year)
United States 3.44
Germany 8.5
United Kingdom 8.71
Italy 9.04
Canada 9.45
France 9.89
Japan 11.34
This is becoming more popular in Germany, too. In effect, future renters pool their money into a non-profit which will then build affordable housing, to be owned and inhabited by them.
It is refreshing to see one of the most vital elements to human survival treated as just that, rather than a mere commodity like gold, to be bought and sold with a focus on equity and profit.
This does not and has never made sense, in the same way that only buying food with an eye towards someday making a profit from it does not make sense.
It does make sense within our current economic system, which sadly does not make any distinction between the fundamental requirements of human life, and all other products or commodities. We all are worse off for not being able to see the difference and separate the two.
Well, this so called "third way", as I know appear in US as private elder care infrastructure, or as charity.
When somebody become so weak (ill or old), cannot care for himself and unfortunately have no family, they could ask to local private care to live in their specialized hostel. And it is not always just ordinary hostel with one room for 5 persons, but some are more like classic motels, with rooms for two persons.
Also, similar infrastructure existed for a long time in Italy, under Catholics church, and I know few good young people, who grown there.
As I know in Northern Europe (Sweden), there are many community buildings (under municipalities), very cheap to rent and even possible to get social donations and not pay at all.
Existed also non-church homes with similar economy (and also not designed as charity), but their examples are not always good. For example, Pruitt–Igoe in St. Louis, Missouri, United States, becomes huge crime center. Other not good example, some bad districts in exUSSR (for example Biryulyovo in Moscow, or Orekhovo-Zuyevo in Moscow Oblast, Russia), also known for their criminal level.
From Pruitt–Igoe experience, people created few rules about so called social homes, and one rule, they must be non-comfortable, to motivate people to grow to commercial rentals or even to once buy own home; second, should be some power, who will constantly monitor residents for crime and immediately deport offenders. So they are not "Third way", they are just temporary solution of very old problem, and not easy solution, even not cheap.
Readit News
I feel like the problem in the US isn't necessarily that the government won't directly pay for these kinds of things like they do in Switzerland, but that it's very very hard to finance a co-op, possibly illegal (that is, you wouldn't have the same legal protections a condo does).
I would be curious to see the finances of the buildings they mention in the article. Assuming that you could arrange the two major financial aspects: 1) financing at a level of a normal home loan 2) cut out the real estate developer profit margin, I wonder if a co-op model would become viable in the US.
Edit to add: Intuitively it seems like the math could work out, if you figure that a co-op takes the appreciation of the real estate out of the picture for the people living there, and that being able to rebalance that lost value towards the initial cost or towards future costs would be a trade-off normal people would be willing to make.
In that sense a co-op is more like an alternative to renting rather than an alternative to home ownership.
With that in mind, housing associations or co-ops and the like take the place of banks, that is, they possess the capital and rent the property to the residents, but keep a portion of the revenue for future renting, as a bank does for future lending.
The difference between the two is that the housing association is typically not-for-profit, and that in a housing association the resident does not accumulate capital, which allows for a reduction in costs compared to a mortgage.
I think that NYC's co-ops (TICs in San Francisco) provided an interesting alternative model. They usually require owner-occupancy, can't be rented easily, and are difficult to finance.
These restrictions eliminate investors and speculators, and shields the the units from the inflation that happens from fed intervention and super low rates.
The result is that they're usually priced a lot lower and appreciate more slowly than they would be if they were condos.
https://www.immobilienscout24.de/expose/161188147
Or it could be a luxurious 300m² apartment with 3 big rooms that goes for three time that price:
https://www.immobilienscout24.de/expose/157476995
> Claude Waelti’s 1,180-square-foot apartment in Lausanne costs around $2,200 a month. The rent has barely increased since he arrived in 1991.
So about 110 square meters which is pretty good for number of rooms in Switzerland.
Deleted Comment
https://www.zb.uzh.ch/en/zuerich/Money-makes-the-world-go-ro...
In Florida right now, in the wake of the Surfside disaster, a lot of condos are struggling with solvency because of the cost of the new safety requirements. Then there is always new technology (asbestos, aluminum wiring, spray foam insulation, polyurethane cladding) that will one day have to be remediated. Then there is climate change.
I think the key is good management and good construction. Unfortunately, both of those things are very opaque for your average person.
https://da.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andelsboligforening
The issue with them is that the loans to build the properties are socialised, so if the other members can not pay the debt, the entire loan is the responsibility of those members who can.
Also, the incentives of a cheaper than market rate flat, means that corruption and nepotism is rampant in those buildings.
It is not pretty in practice.
But if it were a flat/apartment, the owner/manager may not actually take good care of the apartment. Which is worse?
This is purely anecdotal, but I find that the buildings with professional management and purely renting tenants, look better and seem more well kept, compared to the smaller "Andelsforeninger" where its a volunteer management team trying to run it.
Maybe there's some middle ground between socialized housing that incentivizes people to take advantage of overly cheap housing, and a 100% capitalist USA style housing market where lots of people are 1 missed paycheck away from being homeless.
Maybe there is, but human history proves we can't easily reach a equilibrium where everyone has it equally good, due to human greed, envy, cronyism and corruption, making any kind of equality just a fairytale utopia.
So we just bounce between extremes because as always, few people strive have it good and the rest get screwed over in order to pay for the privileges of the select few. There will always be haves and have-nots, no matter how many thumbs the government puts on the scales to try to balance things out for everyone which only breaks things for the worst as they distort economic reality.
Meanwhile from the numbers I gathered, despite the "evil capitalism", statistically by most metrics, Americans enjoy the highest purchasing power for home ownership in the developed western world by a large margin. So Americans love to complain too much, but the truth is by the numbers, most of the world has it much worse than they do.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Housing_cooperative
This does not and has never made sense, in the same way that only buying food with an eye towards someday making a profit from it does not make sense.
It does make sense within our current economic system, which sadly does not make any distinction between the fundamental requirements of human life, and all other products or commodities. We all are worse off for not being able to see the difference and separate the two.
When somebody become so weak (ill or old), cannot care for himself and unfortunately have no family, they could ask to local private care to live in their specialized hostel. And it is not always just ordinary hostel with one room for 5 persons, but some are more like classic motels, with rooms for two persons.
Also, similar infrastructure existed for a long time in Italy, under Catholics church, and I know few good young people, who grown there.
As I know in Northern Europe (Sweden), there are many community buildings (under municipalities), very cheap to rent and even possible to get social donations and not pay at all.
Existed also non-church homes with similar economy (and also not designed as charity), but their examples are not always good. For example, Pruitt–Igoe in St. Louis, Missouri, United States, becomes huge crime center. Other not good example, some bad districts in exUSSR (for example Biryulyovo in Moscow, or Orekhovo-Zuyevo in Moscow Oblast, Russia), also known for their criminal level.
From Pruitt–Igoe experience, people created few rules about so called social homes, and one rule, they must be non-comfortable, to motivate people to grow to commercial rentals or even to once buy own home; second, should be some power, who will constantly monitor residents for crime and immediately deport offenders. So they are not "Third way", they are just temporary solution of very old problem, and not easy solution, even not cheap.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pruitt%E2%80%93Igoe