The Ownership Ladder

The Leeds Building SocietyBuilding societies are member-owned financial institutions. When you make a deposit with the Building Society, you become a member. They offer banking and related financial services,...

Pogo? Revered by a generation in North America, that comic book anti-hero some 50 years ago predicted the alleged culprit causing the current United Kingdom housing affordability crisis — at...

Here's an idea sprung from the cramped (relatively) European countryside that might perfectly suit the wide-open spaces in countries such as the USA, Argentina, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Why...

Much of the world is mightily taken with Singapore's victory in creating a workable social housing scheme with home ownership as its objective. It has been so fulfilling that...

Current housing policy frameworks in many westernized countries resemble hospitals stocked exclusively with multi-coloured bandaids. Last week's solution is now this week's problem? Rip off the old plaster. Stick...

A news item about rising housing prices from Australia caught our eye. The reporter, Stephen Long, begins with a discussion of the rise in value of a home owned...

The Urban Institute has just released Who Owns The Twin Cities, which analyzes residential ownership patterns in Minnesota's Twin Cities (Minneapolis and St. Paul). These communities have the largest...

Lurking in the depths of conservative thought, the idea of a meritocracy is never far from the surface, at the very least as a convenient excuse for inaction. Merit-based...

A recent article in The Guardian forms a basis for our headline. That article connects financial incentives for first time buyers to a plague of ugly, shoddy new build multi-unit...

As cities cores become higher, denser, and more gentrified, the American dream is changing shape. What was once the lure of a single family home on a private lot...

Affordable can homes be realized from lower prices, but also higher income. Advice to young Americans once counselled to 'Go West" to make their fortune? These days, you might be better off going north.

Apologies for the doom-laden headline, but there's seldom a chance to use a pithy poetic-sounding phrase, particularly one that containeth that sophisticated 'eth' sound. After all, a sleazy single...

Tenancy In Common? Well, first we need to make liars out of ourselves by admitting that it's not really affordable, at least not so far as affordablehousingaction.org is concerned....

In the free markets of today's democracies, housing is an investment, not a human right. To build housing in this commodified environment is to pursue profit, not to reaffirm...

Can't get elected as a city councillor in The Soo?The Soo is the nickname of Sault (pronounced 'Soo') Ste. Marie in the province of Ontario If you're a carpenter...

Habitat for Humanity, arguably one of the most respected and successful affordable house building charities in the world, is undergoing a sea change. Even with its ability to mobilize construction...

Democratic candidates for the U.S. federal elections in 2020 have broached the subject of reparations for the continued mistreatment of black Americans that followed emancipation. So far, while there...

From the Right: eliminate onerous government regulations and the free market will build us all out of affordable housing crises, providing the necessary housing for ownership by the "workforce,"...

Is that fixer-upper in a depressed city area your only hope for climbing onto the housing ladder? A recent New York Times article explores the stacked deck that faces...

Without a parents' basement to inhabit while saving for a house down-payment, millennial Aussies entering the housing market are facing a bleak future. Rising rents are taking such a...

Company towns have a special relationship with their citizens. They are usually, though not always, born out of necessity: their remote location. Why create a town in the middle of...

Swedish construction company Skanska, in partnership with well-known furniture retailer Ikea wants to build affordable housing in Worthing, Sussex, UK. 30% of the BloKlok partnership's modular housing project will be set...

The housing market, most unfortunately, is absolutely everywhere. As well, it's absolutely stuck in its everywhere place. (With rare exceptions, nobody buys a house — should they be able...

Habitat For Humanity is universally admired — a wildly successful hands-on religion which combines charity and sweat equity in its clarion call to service. Over the years, volunteers have...

Thanks to housing industry lobbying, the affordable housing crisis that requires government subsidies has expanded upscale from traditional definitions of affordability. The gravy train of subsidies everywhere encompasses 'missing middle'...

Affordable housing is not just a collection of construction material and land costs. It's a purse that must stretch to cover a rental or purchase . . . after...

Eager to climb onto the first rung of the 'housing ladder'? Not convinced by the snarky attitude of blogs like affordablehousingaction.org, that spend column inches eye-rolling at the sanity...

Habitat For Humanity, the affordable housing fundraiser par excellence, the folks who perfected volunteer sweat equity, have thrown up their hands in California and cried 'uncle.' The bottom line: in...

With affordable homes at the mercy of the housing market, the basic human need for shelter is pitted against retirement savings and family wealth. The problem exists in Maine,...

In some western democracies the social housing experiment has been hampered by cold war attitudes, particularly in America. The national mindset: anything smacking in some way of big government...

A Trulia Research Special Report recently updated an earlier exploration of professions which were struggling with affordable housing issues. For many it's a difficult choice: either impoverished by housing and living...

Across the ocean or close to home the dilemma is the same: unaffordable housing is killing the chance of young people ever making it to the first rung of...

Some pretty darned exceptional Americans have donated sweat equity to help form no less than thirty-four little communities of good spirit and good work in the company of other...

What is a Housing Cooperative? It's a communal form of home ownership that allows cooperative members to buy an ownership share in a residential building. Those shares are bought at...

India is the world's second most populous country and it is rapidly developing. Luxury houses are no longer just the palaces of a backward feudal state. Modern sub-developments and...

You know those big multi-storey fire escapes on old buildings? The ones where the last ladder has to be lowered to the ground from above? If you're young and planning...

When finished, 41 households in Patterson, California, will move into affordable homes that they will help to build. Self-Help Enterprises is the sponsor of the project. The US Department...

With the prefabricated housing offering affordable housing possibilities worldwide, it's hardly surprising that 'mobile home parks', 'caravan parks', 'trailer parks' and similar solutions are being repackaged as 'manufactured home...

In North America, it's a natural pastime to kick around trailer parks. Now playing on Netflix: 'Trailer Park Boys' — a festival of bumbling, lamebrain mishap-prone wanna-be criminals milking...

Over time, different countries have evolved their own famous pockets of unaffordable housing. In America, San Francisco. In Australia, Sydney. In Canada, Vancouver. In the United Kingdom, London. As time...

Mobile home parks, a.k.a trailer parks, a.k.a manufactured home parks: call them what you will, over time they've attracted a reputation based on their failings, while their successes have...

From Builder, a magazine catering to the building industry, a recent article purports to provide THE REAL DATA ON ENTRY-LEVEL HOME BUYING AFFORDABILITY  (link below). For affordable housing advocates, one might...