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Comment by teddyh | Hacker News Reader

There's a problem starting such a collective (which is, in effect, what you are proposing): Housing. To have many people live together, you need square footage (or m², for metric people). This necessitates a large apartment or house. Such a thing, (if not bought outright, ha, ha, just kidding), will be expensive. The landlord will need a single legal person to be responsible for the paying of this rent, and own the lease. And I think we can assume from our premise that none of the individuals in question will have anything close to the sort of documented income or credit history to make any sensible landlord agree to the lease. “My friends will totally chip in to pay the rent!” is just not going to work.

So there's a bootstrapping problem which I think is mostly insurmountable. Which is a shame, because it's a good plan, otherwise.

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I've seen this play out. My parents rent houses in a community with two large college campuses within 30 minutes. A group of students or recently graduated newly employed would approach my Dad. Most of the time he wouldn't even consider it -- even if the leaseholder could credibly make rent on their own.

And in some zoning designations, this is actually illegal. For example, years ago I lived in a house in the same town with 4 other guys, but it turned out the maximum number on non-related people allowed in a "single family" dwelling there was 3. The landlord let everyone move in but eventually threatened to kick us out on those grounds.

In Canada, as a poor student/underemployed person, I lived in mansions with 6-10 friends. Those things are •very• hard to rent out. The neighbors hated us though ( we were young, drove crappy cars, sometimes had loud parties, and just generally made a mockery of the rich neighborhood we lived in. The absentee landlords were just parking there money in property, so were quite happy with us.

Things might be different in the States or elsewhere.

That sort of situation is fairly common in the states too, at least in college towns.

I think you lucked out and found “absentee landlords”. I can't see these things being commonly accepted practice among landlords — as you say, your neighbors hated you and you were far from the norm in the area.

But just because you lucked out doesn't mean that it's just as easy for someone else, in another area. To actually create something like this on purpose, somewhere close to where you happen to have gotten a good job? That is hard.

This is actually common in college towns. In Seattle, it's very common in the University district, but almost unheard-of outside that neighborhood.

oops! I hit the wrong reply

6ren is right, but it's not the whole story. In addition to to being able to have multiple people each entirely responsible for a single lease, we (Australia) have a very generous "student allowance" scheme for most students. This guarantees us students a fortnightly income that is almost certainly at least whatever we would be paying in rent + utilities.

My situation is such an example. I live with three other students and one adorable puppy in an expensive city (Brisbane, Queensland - Numbeo.com estimates Brisbane's living costs as ~87% of NYC's). We live just ~5km or ~3 miles from either of the two local universities, and just above 2km or ~1.5 miles from the CBD. Rent is not cheap in our area.

Yet we had no insurmountable problems obtaining a lease. Rental applications are competitive in this area, so we did have to apply for a lot of leases - but credit concerns were never a problem. Despite being employed for maybe just 12 hours a week each, money is not in question - there are four people each entirely responsible for the rent who are guaranteed social benefits that amount to at least enough for their share.

Unemployed Australians also receive similar social benefits provided they keep applying for jobs.

This is very much the opposite to what I experienced in Melbourne.

Youth Allowance with Rent didn't cover my rent in a share house, or even bills. When I didn't have more than one part time job I was relying on money from my Mother to pay the rent.

I receive ~$470 a fortnight in youth allowance and rent assistance. My utilities work out to around $20 a week. That leaves $430 a fortnight for rent. My wages pay my groceries.

Realestate.com.au affords some pretty nice share housing at that rate.. :) I admit it's not the standard of housing that I grew up in, but why would I be entitled to such? ;)

In Australia, it's common for students to share a house, and all go on the lease. This favors the landlord, because each tenant is liable for the entire rent.

This is in university areas, with many students, I assume. In those areas, the large masses of students have made landlords open to this kind of arrangement, and they are used to dealing with students and their… special… economic situation.

But try it in a non-university town where non-students vastly outnumber the students? I don't think so. The landlord has everything to risk and nothing to gain by doing strange and unfamiliar things. If they have even heard of the practice, it's only for students, in student-dense areas, in housing long used in this way, with all the features (internal locks for each room, etc.). Why would they risk their nice house when they can just rent to somebody else?

Having multiple people on the lease is not a strange practice in Australia; it's normal and not as you described. When signing the lease you're not signing for a room, you're signing responsibility for the rent and condition of the whole house/unit (excluding responsibilities remaining with the landlord, e.g. maintenance). Each of your housemates are too.

Rents are expensive. It makes no financial sense to live by yourself.

Even in my home town - which has no substantial university - it's generally assumed that if you rent and do not have dependents, you almost certainly have housemates.

Interesting. I would guess that the general economics have forced the landlords to accept and perhaps even promote this scheme, as it's the only was they can find a market for their services.

I wonder if this acceptance will keep once the economics changes?

I think you have it the wrong way around - it's not a demand-driven arrangement, but a supply-driven one; landlords prefer to have more than one person responsible for the lease, provided the tenants have sound integrity.

It's like standing on one leg; if that leg crumbles, you will fall and land hard. But if you have two legs, one leg can crumble and the other gives you enough time for you to land gently. If you... magically had a third leg (and weren't standing with them in a triangle?), you might not even notice that one leg stopped working.

If that's the case, why hasn't this naturally occured everywhere? Why only in Australia and for students in university towns?

I don't understand why you think this is unusual. At least in the areas I've lived in (LA, Silicon Valley, San Francisco, Seattle, …) it's been very common.

This is the norm in the UK too for shared housing. You have multiple named tenants on the lease and each is responsible for the full rent if the others can't pay.

Rents in Australia have followed the exhorbitant house pricing, and these days if you want to rent, you either share a house, be a well-salaried person, live in a dog box, or live in the boondocks. There's no such thing as a single person on a median or lower wage renting a house in a nice area anymore.

Two words: Detroit [1].

Houses there are so cheap that this kind of plan would probably work as long as you had enough human will and intention to make it happen. As far as I can tell, that is where these things break down. It's hard for groups to form this kind of collective dynamic and trust in the absence of some cohering force - religion, a focal point like a cult leader, or similar influences.

[1] Well, OK, two syllables.

There's a reason houses in Detroit are so cheap.

Fair point. I think it would be a cool lab for intentional communities and alternative living models, but I think there would also be a security risk and possibility for freaks.

There are some cool people who are broke and want to live communally, but there are also some people who do that because they don't have their lives together.

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