Home CoOperatives As a Safe and Ethical Investment
As the dust settles on the turmoil of the recent
Vladislav Davidzon banking crisis many investors have begun to feel that their portfolios should include a comprehensive range of less risky investments. A growing number of those are also waking up to the possibility that ethical investments could also have a part to play within this combination. For many ethical investments are, by their very nature, less uncertain than investments that compromise the quality of life for a person, somewhere. When the backlash comes from that someone, then the penalty is likely to become a plunge in the value of that investment.
Housing Co-operatives have been quietly growing in popularity in both Europe and the USA recently. As property costs have dropped and occupations have become less safe many people have found themselves being forced out of the housing market altogether as far as individual possession is concerned.
Although once seen in the sixties and seventies as a sanctuary for hippies and dropouts, a Housing Co operative now is prone to be filled with teachers, nurses, permaculture consultants, green energy advisers and other lively members of the professional classes who have discovered a way to live that fits in with their ethical lifestyle and societal habits.
Every Housing Co operative in britain, for example, can issue loanstock to the general public if they are a fully reciprocal, Industrial and Provident Society. This position allows them to raise money to buy houses, refurbish them and equip them with heat pumps, solar energy collectors, increased insulation or whatever other job they wish to raise money for to bring benefit to their members and their communities, by issuing their own, individually sealed certificates that pay a fixed rate of interest on a specified amount over a set number of years. The sum of interest paid is negotiable to let them to raise the required finance for their projects. A period of five years is the normal offering.
The fact that lots of people are sharing their dwelling together reduces the chance of them losing it.
Be careful for loanstock problems from Housing Co operatives. They are able to be a safe-haven for your low hazard ethical funds.
For more information, check out
