Our model

Future Folk is a cooperative society which uses a mutual home ownership model.

© Lauren Goodey 'Mouse Patrol'

The mutual home ownership society (MHOS) financial model will be used to finance the building of a co-housing development. In a MHOS, the cooperative society leases its co-housing dwellings to tenant members who will pay a monthly contribution, a portion of which forms their equity share within the cooperative society over time.

Unlike other cooperative housing, the MHOS model allows members to accumulate equity shares with the co-op which can be recuperated when you wish to move out. Your equity share can be bought upfront (much like a deposit when buying a home) or accumulated as part of monthly ‘rental’ payments (in a similar way to conventional shared ownership products) or as a combination of the two.

However, unlike conventional property ownership, the equity owned by members of a MHOS are shares in the society and its assets as a whole, rather than the individual homes themselves.

Households will make monthly payments to the MHOS, which will serve three purposes:

to pay the interest on the loans FFS has taken out to finance the purchase of land and development of properties
to build up a community pot, and
to build up residents’ equity unit shares

To read more about our vision, financial model and legal structure, please see our project development plan.