Co-housing

penpusher

All these apartment blocks - with individual washing machines, ovens, microwaves, juicers, fridges, freezers, tvs - in every single one.

Is there any co-housing development in Ireland i.e. apartment dwellers share these?

It would be a much healthier way of living for single people, rather than pushing this individuation for money-making reasons - and now we have empty apartment shells - wonder if we could convert? And cheaper.

Ste.phen

I think you'll find most people would consider that a regression of standards.
Plenty of student accomodation (section 23 stuff) has that layout, seperate bedroom + bathroom for each person (2-5 people) and one shared living/dining/cooking area.

shoegirl

Given that much of the substandard nature of existing housing stock is due to poorly designed conversions of Victorian and Georgian houses into "flats", its not really a bad idea as long as minimum standards are met and proper management takes place. Most of these new builds are infintismally better quality than the bedsits and shabby HMOs they were intended to remove students from.

Student accomodation comes under Section 50, not section 23 by the way. I suspect however a lot of it will revert to normal market sharing when the tax break period expires as it does seem to me that a large surplus was built and some not well located. Section 50 is different from normal HMOs (its a UK concept, not really commonly used here btw) that leases are per-tenant rather than per property. This forces the landlord to manage the tenant rather than dealing with a "key" tenant.

To be honest, its a far better model than the current one for HMOs, which often leaves one tenant left with the responsibility, and sometimes, the mess. Perhaps a small tax incentive might encourage this model to replace the existing one.

Actually one development that has taken place due to the collapse in the B&B, guesthouse and traditional hotel market is that a lot of former b&b and hotel rooms are now being let to long term tenants. Given again that their standards are a little higher, its not a bad thing entirely.

Victor

http://www.hmo.org.uk/

The problem is responsibility for shared spaces. Landlords don't want it and tenants don't want to clean up other people's messes.

John Mason

sorry but are you suggesting that we turn apartment blocks into hostels ?

sounds like hell to me - there is no way i would live somewhere like that

Ste.phen

I stand corrected on Section 23, I thought that was 'student' accomodation: multiple seperate bedrooms, shared living spaces.

shoegirl

When I lived in the UK it wasn't uncommon for people to live more or less permanently in hostels as it was very cheap and somebody else did the housework. It might suit some people. Most of the section 50 apartments may end up like this. I already notice a lot of former b&b and guesthouses are renting rooms out like this, with a few bells and whistles. Its kind of a hybrid model really, nothing wrong with it.