Tokyo Apartment
Wendy Waters, over at All About Cities, raises an interesting issue about owning vs renting — a topic that Richard Florida previously discussed in “Rent out the American Dream?” And more recently, touched upon, in “Homeownership’s Downsides.”
The argument is this: Homeownership in the US has been heavily subsidized through the the tax code — real estate folks often joke that US tax law was written by a real estate investor — and championed as fundamental to the American Dream; but at the same time it impedes new forms of mobility that are commonplace in today’s global world. If you own property and lose your job, you’re less likely to relocate to where opportunity lies. In other words, homeownership is too static for today’s fluid and global world, where it’s all about human capital.
Now I can clearly see both sides of the argument. Here at Globizen Property, we’re huge supporters of global living. Why live in one locale when you can bounce between a few? Snowboard in Whistler, dine in Paris, shop in Tokyo, you get the idea. But at the same time, ownership is a critical source of wealth creation for most people. Personally, I’m also highly attracted to the idea of permanent ownership. It’s comforting to know that, one day, you’ll be able to pass down your home to your legacy — that you’ve laid your claim to a spatial sliver of Toronto, Miami, Paris, Milan or Hong Kong.
Many of the ideas being thrown around try to find a balance between renting and owning. And usually entail some kind of mechanism for increased flexibility, such as a way to combine units. This is happening to a certain extent right now. Toronto has been pushing for developers to create larger condo suits (3+ bedrooms) for years, but developers say that the market wants smaller units. The solution: knock-out walls that allow for future expansion and coupling of units.
Wendy Waters takes this a step further by proposing a new type of ownership structure, one akin to Co-Ops. Instead of owning a unit outright, you’d buy a share. If you need more space, you just buy more shares (owners would have the right of first refusal). It’s not a radical departure from what currently exists, but it would take a shift in our mentality towards real estate ownership and some clever design solutions.
I agree that change will happen. We’re changing the way we work and live, and yet ownership structures have remained intact. How cool would it be if you could buy a global block of 200 square meters and then decide how you want to allocate it: 100 sqm in Montreal (where you spend most of your time); 50 sqm in Nice (summer trips); and the remaining 50 sqm in Hong Kong (where most of your clients live). And should your needs change, you simply redistribute your square meterage — taking from a city and adding to another.
So maybe that’s the answer. We’re not all going to become renters, we just need to embrace increased flexibility and mobility.
I would be delighted to hear your ideas and/or visions for how we might be living in the future.
Between Rental and Ownership: New Forms of Home Tenure Coming? [All About Cities]
Rent out the American Dream? [USA Today]
Homeownership’s Downsides [Creative Class]
Photo from Flickr by MrHayata
