To Own or Rent: Combining the Best of Both Worlds! - Part 3

[Christopher Gill]

For context of this third post see previous two posts at the links below:

Part 1

Part 2

If you have a model that is effectively combining some of the basic economic and lifestyle benefits of renting and buying what are some ways you can "up the ante" and make the package even more convincing to consumers?

Some of my initial ideas are:

Vacation Days: Every quarter or 6 months you live at a community you are awarded a vacation day at any of the other communities you may want to visit. 

This would require keeping an extra house or two available to people inside your system (similar to VRBO or Air BnB) for use as a vacation property. You would also be able to purchase extra days if you wanted a longer vacation. These could accrue indefinitely for longer trips or excursions across the country.

Self Sustaining Community: Have a place where as many basic needs as possible were met inside the community. Some urban multi family dwelling developments are doing this; but I think it needs to become more common.

- Provide a small grocery area where staples can be purchase easily. (or partner with Amazon On Demand or other delivery services to make this as streamlined and simple for your residents as possible)

- Entertaining areas. Have spaces that can be rented for formal dining and throwing larger parties. This would be especially beneficial when people are living in a smaller dwelling but still want the ability to entertain comfortably. 

- Community working space. Co-working spaces are exploding as a new non-office model for freelancers. Provide this for your residents; create the new hip coffee/wine shop inside your community.

Foster Togetherness: In a world of hyper online connection it has become more and more difficult to create real in person relationships. How can you help people become reconnected with their neighbors? Can you help these people work and play together? We all dream of living down the road from our friends, but perhaps we should also be creating a new ones; and building those relationships as well.

I'm aware these ideas aren't inherently unique or different to this housing model, but they aren't being effectively implemented across the neighborhood or multi-family space. If we take the time to reimagine housing, can we also figure out the best ways to build a sense of community and togetherness at the same time?