Our pilot communities are local, precedent-setting housing initiatives and projects developed by our members. Their lived experience shapes the MOBA model, and the MOBA model informs the direction of their further development.
These pioneering projects defy deterring conditions in contexts shaped by short-term profit, unregulated rent, rising debt, and structural barriers to collective ownership. They persist as proofs-of-concept for an alternative approach to housing as a common good and point to what could be achieved with meaningful institutional support.
Through translocal support, they are part of a shared arc of gradually shifting the reality for cooperative housing in the region.
Zugló Collective House, Budapest
It took members of the Rákóczi Collective 7 years to establish the first collectively owned, rental-based housing cooperative in Hungary. After hitting dead ends with multiple municipalities and banks – who found their set-up too unfamiliar and risky – the collective decided to find their future home on the market and pool all of their economic, as well as social capital to secure a permanently affordable home.
Using all of their savings and direct loans from a supportive community around the project, they bought a three-unit building in 2018 and reimagined it into a collective housing space. The renovation was carried out by the Gólya Cooperative, members, and volunteers. Zugló Collective House is a small project – and an enormous step for the development of cooperative housing in the region despite regulatory and financial barriers. The association co-founded ACRED and informs their collaborative housing development branch.
Type: Renovation
Phase: Lived in
Legal form: Association
Finance: 55% member contribution, 45% direct loans from allies
První Vlaštovka, Prague
When the collective Sdílené domy bought its first building – a former hotel – in Prague’s Břevnov district in 2022, their hope was for it to be the first piece of a broader network of housing projects in the Czech Republic. The network now numbers three housing projects and one community centre. Vlaštovka blazed the trail and made other projects possible, yet is still undergoing a physically, financially and bureaucratically demanding renovation of both the living and public areas of the house.
When trying to find out more about the building they bought, they learned that the former hotel temporarily served as shelter for German anti-fascists fleeing Nazi Germany. With the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, they decided to continue this tradition by offering the house as a shelter to people fleeing the war. Vlaštovka will house 15-18 people, a semi-public shared space, several offices for non-profits and an open political space in the basement.
Type: Renovation
Phase: Lived in, reconstruction ongoing
Legal form: Social cooperative
Finance: 70% Stiftung Umverteilen, 27% short term direct loans, 3% members
Vzletný Racek, Děčín
A bit further into 2022, a dozen people from across Czechia looking for affordable collective living formed a social cooperative to jointly purchase a villa with a large garden in Děčín, a small Czech city in a mining region close to the German border. Their collective relocation to a small city was not an escapist move – properties in larger centres proved to be fully out of financial reach, and they claimed the neglected villa from the market as a base for place-based organising.
While Racek carries out a gradual DIY renovation, their indoor and outdoor spaces are already used for both cooperative living and neighbourhood events, community gardening, bicycle repairs and educational programmes. The collective is a core part of Děčín’s first community energy, social and solidarity economy and community-supported agriculture initiatives and an example of what cooperative housing can do for community solidarity infrastructure beyond major urban centres.
Type: Renovation
Phase: Lived in, reconstruction ongoing
Legal form: Social cooperative
Finance: 60% members, 25% family, 15% friends
Цenter for New Cooperative Housing, Belgrade
In 2023, the Цenter for New Cooperative Housing opened in Belgrade as a physical space for collective action towards realising the first rental cooperative housing project in Belgrade. It is a focal point for gathering, testing and learning: exploring financial models, challenging legal frameworks, campaigning, and involving citizens and experts in realising an alternative for people priced out of the market or wanting to live in community.
The Цenter grew out of a decade of work by the Ko Gradi Grad platform and the Pametnija zgrada cooperative, which had long-developed housing projects that hadn’t yet taken physical form due to an extremely unfavourable, if not hostile, environment for collective and solidarity-based housing solutions in Serbia – the only non-EU country in MOBA.
Ganz81, Budapest
For over 44 years, TEK – The College for Studies in Social Theory – a student community movement focused on vocational work, critical theory and community life has operated in their current dormitory. In recent years, rising fees, shrinking community spaces, and growing restrictions on self-organisation left over half of Tekies without access to their Budapest home and community base.
Determined to continue their practice and secure long-term affordability, they partnered with ACRED, themselves alumni of TEK. Fast forward to 2025, TEK’s new collectively-owned and community-led dormitory in the Ganz district of Budapest is on its way to become the first student housing cooperative in Hungary and the region. This marks a new era for the second-oldest still-operating college in the country with the largest increase of the housing price index among EU member states. The deposit has been paid. A fundraising campaign is ongoing. They have to move in June 2026.
Type: Renovation
Phase: Under development
Legal form: Foundation
Finance: 50% direct loans from TEK alumni, 50% MOBA Accelerator pool
Collaborative coop housing projects, Croatia
In 2021, the City of Križevci partnered with MOBA members ZOA and ZEF for a regional first – a cooperative housing project on public land in collaboration with a municipality. The project set out to transform a centrally located former military dormitory into an affordable, collectively owned housing cooperative as part of a larger regeneration of the district into a mixed-use civic space with educational, social, and cultural infrastructure. The initiative faced years of uncertainty due to a lack of national frameworks and cautious financial actors, yet the groundwork it established, from legal analysis and citizen mobilisation to securing a building permit, broke institutional deadlock.
In 2025, the City of Pula entered into a cooperation agreement with local MOBA members to facilitate a new-build cooperative housing project on public land. In parallel, housing cooperatives were included in newly drafted affordable housing laws and strategies. The processes in Croatia are a major step towards housing cooperatives as a systemic solution available to many, as opposed to a feat of extraordinary local effort.
Type: Renovation and new build on public land
Phase: Citizen engagement
Legal form: Housing cooperative
Finance: 50% commercial bank loan, 40% Agency for Transactions and Mediation in Immovable Properties (APN), 10% member contributions
