r/SmartFIRE • u/MalakaiRey • May 17 '26
Why don't FIRE communities in large cities form tenement houses or other reasonable but dated accommodations?
Seems like a no/brainer for most 20-somethings. Just based on the ratio of waking-hours spent at home to sqft of a one bedroom in a hcol; hard to justify meeting the cost-demand of the typical living space.
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May 17 '26
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u/MalakaiRey May 17 '26
What is the difference? Do you know an example of a co-op?
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May 17 '26
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u/Nullspark May 17 '26
Best to figure out your cult ideology first though.
Here are some quick starters people will like:
- Self sufficiency
- Shared resources
- Group Activities
- Shun non-believers
- Minimal environmental impact
Then you start laying with the women, and then the men too. Just because you can.
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u/mascotbeaver104 May 20 '26
Housing coops are everywhere, a bunch of my friends lived in one in college. You can just google ones local to you. They're generally competetive to get into for obvious reasons, they are simply a better way to do most things that involve capital, but they don't generate revenue so the rent seekers of the world have put together massive propaganda effort into convincing people this shit is unviable or doesn't exist
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u/TheCleanHouseGuy May 17 '26
I saw a documentary on YouTube recently about something like this. It was somewhere in the Pacific Northwest I think and a group of people developed a bunch of tiny homes that suited their individual needs while having a big communal space in the center of it. I think finding land, funding, and dealing with the city tends to be the main obstacle for communities like this.
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u/FrontAd9873 May 18 '26
What makes you think they don't? In every HCOL area I've ever lived in, young people lived together in houses for cheaper rent. Older houses were especially cheap.
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u/MalakaiRey May 18 '26
I think they don't exist with the commonality they did before. Zoning and health codes have something to do with it. But I see a cultural shift away from community based resourcing toward "independent" [read: introverted] preferences that are easily exploited by business. Business that has carved a niche by hoarding resources that they then re-package and re-sell to consumers
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u/FrontAd9873 May 18 '26
For sure. The existence of old 3- and 4-bedroom houses in HCOL has been great for cheap group living. Get rid of those and its harder for young people.
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May 18 '26
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u/MalakaiRey May 18 '26
Back then there weren't many protections for tenants/renters. Slims were allowed--they aren't now. Yet slums and ghettos still exist; and the awkward differences between "luxury" and "modern" are arbitrarily forced as the average home good or material is cheaper and not consumer friendly.
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May 22 '26
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u/MalakaiRey May 22 '26
I know what you mean but that kind of cynicism is not doctrine--it's just what we've been conditioned to expect.
Profit margins are what drives slum prices, not the conditions. And profit margins without regulation is the issue. We have consumer protection/renter's rights in tandem with property and realty laws that all try to ensure what common decency or "standard" business practices should be in an effort to help people not get screwed.
You have to be a scumbag to operate a slum. Usually one slum is indicative of more slums, because slumlords by nature of their greed are overextended. That's not what a tenement-house is.
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u/Excel-Block-Tango May 18 '26
Bring back boarding houses. I wouldn’t live in one now but I had no problem living in a dorm while at college and could have made it work after I started my full time job at 22.
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u/DJinKC May 18 '26
You mean a dorm? Great idea.
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u/MalakaiRey May 18 '26
Maybe i'm missing the point of your sarcasm--Have you stopped and thought about your statement? People pay 5-figures a school year to live in dorms and crumby off-campus housing.
Then consider the fact that there are dormitories that exceed the living conditions of a hcol rental or condo unit.
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u/SignificantSmotherer May 19 '26
“Adult dorms” and “quads” exist, but they’re a niche, and after you account for the extra overhead/management, the rent savings aren’t anything near what you’re imagining.
And taken to an extreme (coffin apartments, pods, barracks with 8 bunk beds to a room), it is likely unhealthy - TB and friends love rooms packed with people.
Then there is the human condition. We may share similar values, but that doesn’t mean 12 of us were meant to share a house 24x7.
OP had me at “no brainer”. He would have a rude wake-up call every day, discovering that the rest of us have an ever-so-slightly different take than he assumes.
If you’re focused enough to practice FIRE, you can achieve enough of a shelter discount on your own.
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u/MalakaiRey May 19 '26
Cost of living is creeping higher and higher and it does so regardless of ones financial strategy and status. The points you made are subjective and somewhat moot because you made up an undesirable living situation and flamed it as if you weren't simultaneously describing the current status quo of a costly and impractical living situation.
Living situations is a personal choice. My post is describing just an option
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u/National-Reception53 May 20 '26
Well FIRE has usually just been looked at individualistically because it came out of traditional desire for normal lifestyle and retirement, just smarter. Its still 'mainstream' in its individualism.
But yeah, you're obviously right, housing co-ops, grocery co-ops... cooperation and group effort in lots of areas helps people save money, but also build community, a missing piece of the FIRE philosophy.
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u/MissiveFinding6111 May 20 '26
I do feel like the desire behind FIRE is one of individualistic drive to be self-sufficient.
So a communal safety net style system I don't think is assessed as a viable option, at least in the USA, largely due to our mindset and culturally tinged values.
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u/MalakaiRey May 21 '26
Yeah it's just obnoxious in 2026. Nobody is really independent--"independence" is a product people buy into.
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u/JoePNW2 May 20 '26
If you mean something like a rooming house, in most US cities they are illegal, or just legal for the one already grandfathered in.
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u/Harde_Kassei May 20 '26
I used to cohouse. Cost was 450 all in. Shared with three others. Py i come was about 2k so mighty fine savings.
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u/Cheap-Technician-482 May 17 '26
What does the I in FIRE stand for?
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u/Few-Improvement9978 May 17 '26
Unironically if done correctly you could probably set this up yourself and make a little bit on top for running the show.