Consumer-ownership of Housing

One of the most important needs is for shelter, and here housing co-ops have filled an important niche, though rarely achieving a dominant position in a housing market. Before we even begin to consider this type of MOB, we have to make a crucial distinction between building co-ops and permanent housing co-ops. Building co-ops are set up to enable people mutually to build housing; they are the counterpart to the terminating building society that used to provide finance for the same purpose, and when the housing is finished the society ceases to exist. They are often conflated with permanent housing co-ops. For instance, they are common in Ireland, and this leads to a claim that 4% of housing in Ireland is co-operative when in fact there is only a very small permanent housing co-operative sector (CCMH, 2009). They have been a major tool for urban development in Turkey, Pakistan and India, using land given by government to create whole neighbourhoods for owner-occupation. Building coops have provided 1.4 million dwellings—25% of the housing stock—in Turkey, but they have nearly all dissolved on completion. In India there are said to be 92,000 housing co-ops, but these include terminating and permanent societies, as well as building societies for mortgage lending (ICA Housing, 2010).