Vision
The Alliance for Collaborative Real Estate Development (ACRED) takes a new angle on real estate development. It aims to create physical spaces in which communities based on the principles of solidarity and democracy can form, develop and work together. The Alliance sees collective ownership of property as contribution to the emergence of a more just and equal society.
Mission
ACRED is a non-profit organization that provides community-based real estate services – development and building management – as part of the emerging solidarity economy ecosystem in Hungary and Eastern Europe.
Its members and partners are communities that embrace the core values of cooperativism and apply them in their operations, particularly in the way they create and use physical infrastructure.
Communities based on economic solidarity need access to spaces that will enable them to expand. The Alliance therefore puts a priority on the acquisition of appropriate real estate, an area that has unavoidable political aspects. It seeks buildings that can provide affordable housing, community spaces or democratic workplaces, all run in the spirit of solidarity. By providing services in property search, property development, construction, finance, and community development, ACRED helps communities gain access to the space they need.
The Alliance also functions as a network within the solidarity economy ecosystem, enabling communities to ensure that their physical spaces continue to operate on a non-profit basis in the long term.
The Alliance also helps its members and partners set up building management systems for their properties, professional and community-based. It also supports its partners in developing local social responsibility and neighbourhood programs.
Aims
ACRED is an unprecedented initiative in Hungary: a non-profit, democratically managed real estate developer. Our aim is to enable resource-poor communities and individuals to gain access to real estate and set up a form of non-profit operation that is sustainable in the long term. Although our activities are not market-driven, the organization is financially self-sustaining and able to attract market-based financial resources.
The buildings must have an ownership structure that guarantees their long-term use for community or social purposes, with democratic, non-profit operation. We therefore focus on the development and management of cooperatively owned properties.
We are also working on innovative legal and financial arrangements that make these models feasible within the existing regulatory environment, such as community financing and patient equity investments.