Cooperatives in the upswing: Around 574,000 members cheer!

Cooperatives in the upswing: Around 574,000 members cheer!

Deutschland - The cooperatives flourish! The non -profit construction associations (GBVS) in Austria currently have an impressive 574,000 members - an increase of 2.4 % compared to the previous year. The 90 cooperatives within the association represent a significant size with a managed residential stock of around 998,000 apartments. The GBVs are not in the race for profit, but pursue the common good goal of providing living space for broad sections of the population. According to the current report, they provide around 660,000 rental and cooperative apartments, which underlines their essential role in housing ( Oe24.at ).

The variety of cooperatives

cooperatives are more than just housing associations. In Germany there are around 8,000 cooperatives with a total of 23 million members who extend to different sectors. These volunteers have the primary goal of promoting the economic and social activities of their members. For example, 90 % of the bakers, 75 % of retailers and 60 % of the craftsmen are a member of a cooperative. It also looks similar in the financial sector: more than half of the customers at Volksbanken and Raiffeisenbanken are partners of their institutes. Cooperatives also cover around 10 % of the total rental apartment market in Germany, which corresponds to around 2.2 million rental apartments. The collaborations not only support existing structures, but also promote innovative solutions in living space supply and beyond ( domradio.de ).