Co-ownership is a rewarding decision for many groups and individuals. GoCo has assisted and witnessed the success of many groups throughout the years. Co-owning a house has many benefits and in this article, we’ll go through five of the best benefits of co-ownership.
Combine-Leverage-Split
In GoCo’s opinion, this is the cornerstone of co-ownership. The housing market is expensive and many single buyers struggle to enter. The process of combine-leverage-split allows multiple buyers to combine their financial profiles together, leverages everyone’s incomes and finances to increase the property value the group can qualify for and finally split the burdens and costs to make ownership more affordable. With the average house in Toronto costing $819,319 at the start of 2020, it’s a huge benefit to pool incomes and resources than to approach the housing market alone.
2. Share Burdens
Speaking of splitting the burdens, co-ownership is a great way to spread out and share many expenses of owning a house. This can be in the form of monetary burdens such as sharing the cost of utilities and monthly expenses or sharing the cost of emergency expenses and damages to the house. There are also non-monetary burdens that can be shared in co-ownership included but not limited to household chores, household maintenance, car-pooling, childcare and pet care.
3. Sustainability
Sharing a space can also create a more sustainable way of living. Through sharing a home rather than living separately, co-owners can reduce their environmental impact. Additionally, utilising carpooling and shared transportation can further reduce a household’s carbon footprint. There are some co-ownership and cohousing groups that will base their lifestyle on living sustainably through communal gardening and waste reduction.
4. Age-In-Place
While this point may not be relevant to every co-owner, many senior co-owners will enjoy the benefits of aging in place. A co-ownership environment often brings a far better lifestyle than many care facilities and assisted living facilities that are often already overburdened and underfunded. Many studies have shown that aging in place not only nets cost savings for families, government and healthcare systems but also nets health and emotional benefits when compared to institutional care. Additionally it allows seniors to be a part of a community.
5. Intentional Community
Perhaps the most important aspect of co-ownership is the forming of an intentional community. Here at GoCo we always talk about the benefits of community and how it affects the mental, emotional, social and physical wellbeing of individuals. Being able to form your own community and having a great support system around you whether you aspire to live sustainably with likeminded individuals or wish to age in place with dignity and compassion, drastically increases your quality of life and allows your house to be a home not just a hunk of brick and mortar.
Whether you are looking to buy a house through a more affordable route or you wish to create and live in an intentional community, co-ownership can be the perfect solution for you. Here at GoCo we believe that co-ownership is a way to drastically increase your quality of life and ease the stress and burden of owning a home.