Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Charter Houses (2022)

slimemoldtimemold.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 48 posts

Re: Charter Houses (2022)

#21

Post by civilitty »

Racing0461 wrote: post #11
egypturnash wrote: post #6

You want rules, trust me you want rules. I have lived in something really close to this situation – seven furries, one four-bedroom house in Seattle’s suburbs, one person with a high-paying IT job – and it fell apart. And a big part of why this fell apart is because we never even talked about things like “maybe we should set up a chore rota”. This also sounds a lot like “fraternities” and “sororities”, which certainl…

What if the 6 others also had high paying it jobs. Outsource all non essential tasks ala taskrabbit? Money sounds like the issue here.

I think money is largely the issue. I lived in several different 5-7 bedroom communal houses in SF with a bunch of founders/engineers and if everyone (or even half the people) have high paying jobs then it's a very different experience. The group can easily absorb months of another resident's rent if they have volatile income which greatly reduces the pressure on relationships.

It only costs a few hundred bucks a week to have cleaners come over and take care of the house so most chores are a none issue. Dishes and trash were the only rotating chores IIRC since those couldn't be put off between weekly cleanings. There was a fridge for personal food and a separate communal fridge with a group food budget so all staples were always taken care of. Internet, insurance, water, power, were all split equally. There were no problems concerning the money even though some people were messier, some ate at home more, some worked from home entirely, etc. etc.

That's a far flung situation from the one described in TFA though. We lived together to build a community as adults, not for survival. That changes the dynamics.

Re: Charter Houses (2022)

#22

Post by fbdab103 »

MuffinFlavored wrote: post #8

> Even if you did nothing but stick the money in an S&P 500 index fund, the historical average is about 10% per year. * With dividends reinvested, before inflation Say S&P dividends are always 1.5% 10% total return - 1.5% dividends (ignoring the quarterly compounding aspect for simplity) = 8.5% in equity growth Say you wouldn't reinvest them because you want cash flow equivalent to 4% of your principal 4% drawdown ru…

I think it is more a rule of thumb meant to be simplistic for modelling purposes, less a perfectly calculated system. I also believe the 4% rule is with the intention of keeping the principle mostly intact over 30 years of retirement.

Re: Charter Houses (2022)

#23

Post by fragmede »

spondylosaurus wrote: post #12

> Charter houses could solve this problem neatly. A charter house or two could easily be set up with positions offered to people who are filling these roles, providing them with a minimum of support — at the very least, free rent and free high-speed internet. These people are professionals, so this may not be enough for them — but there’s no reason they can’t get support from the charter house and make additional mon…

Because community. Tossing money over the wall via an LLC doesn't automatically do that. There are no shared dinners, no impromptu coffee chats, no late night conversations without cohabitation.

Re: Charter Houses (2022)

#24

Post by mold_time »

spondylosaurus wrote: post #12

> Charter houses could solve this problem neatly. A charter house or two could easily be set up with positions offered to people who are filling these roles, providing them with a minimum of support — at the very least, free rent and free high-speed internet. These people are professionals, so this may not be enough for them — but there’s no reason they can’t get support from the charter house and make additional mon…

The original question is something like, "what’s the minimum form of scholarly institution?" If you want to set up a nonprofit to support a number of researchers/students/intellectuals, it's cheapest to 1) purchase housing "in bulk" and 2) buy rather than rent. Hence buying a house.

Re: Charter Houses (2022)

#25

Post by fragmede »

Moto7451 wrote: post #17
spondylosaurus wrote: post #12

> Charter houses could solve this problem neatly. A charter house or two could easily be set up with positions offered to people who are filling these roles, providing them with a minimum of support — at the very least, free rent and free high-speed internet. These people are professionals, so this may not be enough for them — but there’s no reason they can’t get support from the charter house and make additional mon…

I had a friend try this in upstate New York. The result? One ruined friendship and an alienated family member. The property was sold and no one ever talks about it. Leaning to the “lord” part is precisely right and the eventual “peasant revolt” is ugly. The eventual plan was kinda cool. Offer a vacation destination as a digital detox zone for the Digital Nomad set. They knew a number of people in that space they coul…

Someone I knew died in a car crash, but somehow we all keep driving cars. Just because your friend's one attempt failed terribly doesn't mean the whole idea is rotten. I'm aware of a number of successful communities/warehomes that are making it work.

Re: Charter Houses (2022)

#26

Post by Moto7451 »

fragmede wrote: post #25
Moto7451 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had a friend try this in upstate New York. The result? One ruined friendship and an alienated family member. The property was sold and no one ever talks about it. Leaning to the “lord” part is precisely right and the eventual “peasant revolt” is ugly. The eventual plan was kinda cool. Offer a vacation destination as a digital detox zone for the Digital Nomad set. They knew a number of people in that space they coul…

Someone I knew died in a car crash, but somehow we all keep driving cars. Just because your friend's one attempt failed terribly doesn't mean the whole idea is rotten. I'm aware of a number of successful communities/warehomes that are making it work.

You’re taking my one added data point and extrapolating. I did not say that communes can’t work.

Re: Charter Houses (2022)

#27

Post by spondylosaurus »

fragmede wrote: post #23
spondylosaurus wrote: post #12

> Charter houses could solve this problem neatly. A charter house or two could easily be set up with positions offered to people who are filling these roles, providing them with a minimum of support — at the very least, free rent and free high-speed internet. These people are professionals, so this may not be enough for them — but there’s no reason they can’t get support from the charter house and make additional mon…

Because community. Tossing money over the wall via an LLC doesn't automatically do that. There are no shared dinners, no impromptu coffee chats, no late night conversations without cohabitation.

Does buying a home and letting people live in it automatically created shared dinners or coffee chats though? I can't say I've ever done that with my landlord. And yeah, my landlord doesn't usually live with me, but I've also had a fair share of roommate arrangements where we were friendly but not exactly friends. Certainly not eating meals together.

Re: Charter Houses (2022)

#29

Post by spondylosaurus »

Moto7451 wrote: post #26
fragmede wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Someone I knew died in a car crash, but somehow we all keep driving cars. Just because your friend's one attempt failed terribly doesn't mean the whole idea is rotten. I'm aware of a number of successful communities/warehomes that are making it work.

You’re taking my one added data point and extrapolating. I did not say that communes can’t work.

"People living together often butt heads" isn't even an out-there concept. (It's one reason I and others would argue that even communes should have individual living quarters—everyone having their own apartment in a shared building versus everyone having one room in a sprawling mansion. The former can have shared common areas, but the latter becomes one giant common area.)

And I'll throw another data point in the pile: I've had too many friendships soured by turning friends into roommates. In part because we were all immature and bad at handling conflict, myself included (ah, college!), and in part because there can be people in your life who you love and cherish but do not want to share a kitchen with. I'd imagine tensions would have been higher if only one of us was paying rent and the others were living there for free.

Re: Charter Houses (2022)

#30

Post by pjs_ »

pjs_ wrote: post #2

https://www.radicalroutes.org.uk/

Hippies have been doing housing co-ops for a long time, and they work kind of like this, and they are mostly (in my experience) cool places.

A bunch of people get together and buy a house which they can then live in as a community. As time goes on people move in and out, and in general these function as very cheap shared housing with no landlord and (usually) a flat, non-hierarchical structure. There are usually expectations on pitching in to maintain and run the house.

Radical Routes is the org that helped out most of the groups that I knew: https://www.radicalroutes.org.uk/

Lots of homebrew country wines, asylum seekers in a raised bed above the stairs, curry, good parties and messy drama.

Of course you still find the full spectrum of human bad behavior in any place like this, but generally my limited experience was that these places attract thoughtful, creative, slightly weird people and are shining beacons of an alternative way of doing things.

To the note in the article about rules, my weak impression was that the more systematic, sincere, organized co-ops tended to be the ones that survived - hands-off tended to turn rotten after a while. There's definitely some sort of alchemy involved in making the thing successful.

Post reply on HN