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shanshee_allures wrote: This sounds fine but is it a realistic prospect for families?
Do you mean the investment, or the co-ops themselves?
Either way, the answer's yes.
If you mean the investment, there's a far better guarantee of returns than most other investments.
If you mean to live, many co-ops get a large house, and people with kids often find it's really helpful to have a number of responsible and concerned adults in their children's lives. It's often a big improvement on the pressure and stress of being the only ones responsible.
Other co-ops have a number of properties, with people living in their own flat/house but the owner being the co-op.
Essentially, everyone who lives there is part of the company that owns the property. When you move in, you join the ownership company, when you leave the property, you also quit the co-op.
You pay rent to the ownership company; the property is owned and controlled by whoever lives in it.
It gives the best of ownership and the best of renting. It means you don't have the weight of a personal mortgage round your neck but you're able to treat the place as your own and - subject to the others on the co-op - to make whatever changes to the property you see fit. But then you don't have some shonky fast-buck landlord leaving you in a leaky dump, and if you end up jobless you can claim housing benefit so don't lose your home.
Eventually, the mortgage is paid off and you get to decide whether to have nominal rent, to buy more properties, or to lend a load of money to help other people start up new ones. With every rent payment you liberate solid bricks and mortar from the capitalist buy-and-sell!
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