MOME — the professional manager of housing cooperatives in Gaia and Porto — promises homes “at cost price”, 20% below market. We opened the competitors' listings in the same areas and measured. Then we put the result next to what the studies of other countries measure in their cooperatives: Austria, Zurich, Barcelona, Uruguay and the US. It is the first independent verification of these prices on record.
Every outlet that repeated the “20% below market” quoted it from MOME itself — the phrase comes from an interview the founder gave to idealista/news in June 2023. No independent source has ever compared these prices with the market. That is what we did, and then we widened the comparison to the literature published in other countries.
The 13 T3+1 terraced houses of Pedras.coop (Lavadores, 500 m from the river mouth) cost €3,500–4,193/m² usable. New build 500 metres away asks €4,100–4,300/m² gross — about €4,600–5,100/m² usable once converted (Pedras.coop prices: Vida Económica, 2023). That is where the discount lives: 10–25% below the area's new build, with Pedras's top of the range (€956k) falling inside the range of the neighbouring new terraces (€850k–990k).
“In the case of Pedras.coop, we are talking about an area where a house equivalent to the one we are developing costs around one million euros. Our aim is for the sale price to be 20% below market value when we open enrolments.” Francisco Rocha Antunes, founder of MOME — idealista/news, 22-06-2023
The “one million” reference is not absurd — there are new T4s in the area asking €1.25M — but it is the top of the new market, not the average. Against the second-hand and recent stock of the same parish (€449k–850k), Pedras is not cheaper; it is a different product, new, with a pool.
| Terraced houses | Product | Price | Area | €/m² | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pedras.coop (MOME) | T3+1, 13 units | €525k–956k | 150–228 m² usable | 3,500–4,193 usable | under construction, handover 2027 |
| Mare Villas | new T3 | €850k–990k | 199–241 m² gross | 4,108–4,289 gross | new |
| Splendouro Village (JLL) | new T4 | €825k–900k | 212–305 m² gross | 2,951–3,892 gross | new, Oct 2026 |
| R. Nova dos Chieiras | T3 + office | €885k | 374 m² gross | 2,366 gross | ready Oct 2026 |
| Essia | T4, sea view | €1.25M | 388 m² gross | 3,222 gross | new |
| Beco Barrete (reference) | second-hand T3 | €449k | 204 m² gross | 2,201 gross | second-hand |
Sources: idealista · terraced houses, Canidelo, Splendouro Village, imovirtual · Lavadores; Pedras.coop prices: Vida Económica, 11-08-2023.
In the Carvalhido, Hera.coop's T0 “from €187k” (98 apartments, €34M investment) faces new T0s listed at €210k–215k — and an area average price of €3,641/m² on idealista itself (Hera.coop prices: idealista/news, 2024). The discount is 10–12% on the T0, not 20%. On the T3 (~€493k), the price simply falls inside the range of the area's new market — between Edifício Leonor (€475k–570k) and OAK (€721k).
| Apartments | Type | Price | Area | €/m² | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hera.coop (MOME) | T0–T3, 98 units | €187k–493k | n/a | — | enrolling (2024) |
| R. Honório Barreto (ERA) | T0 | €215k | 56 m² gross | 3,839 gross | new |
| R. da Constituição | T0 | €210k | 61 m² gross | 3,443 gross | — |
| CASA SAPO | T0/T1 | €205k | 46 m² | ≈4,457 | new, Dec 2026 |
| Edifício Leonor | T3 | €475k–570k | 149–183 m² gross | 3,115–3,312 gross | new |
| R. de Monsanto | T3 | €397.5k | 109 m² usable | 3,647 usable | 2020 |
Sources: idealista · T0 Carvalhido (“average price in this area: €3,641/m²”), idealista · T3, CASA SAPO · Carvalhido; Hera.coop prices: idealista/news, 21-06-2024.
A discount measured on asking prices is not the whole story. Three things are left out:
The cooperative structure has real tax advantages, verifiable in the Estatuto dos Benefícios Fiscais (the Tax Benefits Statute, art. 66-A): the housing cooperative is exempt from IRC (corporate income tax) (No. 1(d)), exempt from IMT (property transfer tax) on the purchase of the land (No. 8), exempt from IMI (property tax) during construction (No. 9) and exempt from stamp duty on loans (item 28.1). Added up, they are worth on the order of 1–2% of the project's cost. The reduced VAT rate on construction does not apply — it was conditional on classification as social housing, which houses of €525k–956k are not.
The rest of the discount is development arithmetic: no developer margin in the price (replaced by MOME's fees, of unknown value), no brokerage commissions, and the cooperative members advancing the money that in a classic developer would cost bridge financing. The pre-committed demand is real — 70% expressions of interest at Pedras in 2023 — and it is what allows a company with €100k of capital to orchestrate an €8.4M project.
Sources: CASES · Estatuto dos Benefícios Fiscais (EBF art. 66-A); CGD · Buying a home in a cooperative; DL 84/2021; company registry at Iberinform.
Where do cooperatives deliver large discounts? Everywhere the model cuts what the MOME model does not cut: land (public land on concession in Barcelona, 75-year surface rights), profit distribution (Vienna, Zurich), the scale of the units and self-build (Uruguay). The chart gathers the published numbers — never mixing measures: each line declares whether it measures rent, monthly charge, construction or purchase.
| Country | Source · year | What it measures | Cooperative | Market-rate | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Austria | IIBW · 2023 (2022 data) | rent €/m²/month | 7.6 | 10.2 | −25.5% |
| — Vienna | idem | rent €/m²/month | 7.9 | 10.7 | −26.2% |
| Austria | IIBW · 2024 (2023 data) | rent €/m²/month | 8.1 | 11.1 | −27% |
| Austria | IIBW · 2023 | differential adjusted for size, equipment and location | — | −€2.3/m² | |
| Zurich | WBG · 2021 | rents | — | −27% to −36% | |
| Barcelona | urbaMonde + WRI · 2021 | La Borda monthly charge vs. comparable rent | €8.71/m² | €12.63/m² | −31% to −45% |
| Barcelona | Lacol · 2018 | La Borda construction cost | €850/m² | no public comparator | — |
| Uruguay | eldiario · 2019 (min.) | construction | — | −20% to −25% | |
| Uruguay | idem (Del Navío case) | purchase, 70 m² | ≈€80k | ≈€129k | −38% |
| US | Urban Institute · 2010 | resale vs. appraised value (7 programmes, 2 cooperatives) | 49–75% of appraised | 100% | −25% to −51% |
| Germany | Baugemeinschaften federation, n.d. | purchase | — | “up to ~25%”* | |
| Portugal | Coimbra & Almeida · 2013 | purchase, model with social housing rules | — | −50% to −70% | |
| Portugal | this study · 2026 | purchase vs. new build | — | −10% to −25% / 0%** | |
* Claim of the German federation itself, with no study or €/m² cited — we found no independent academic study with numbers. ** Pedras.coop / Hera.coop.
Two papers cover the two sides of the question. The first is Portuguese: Coimbra & Almeida (2013) document the national cooperative model inside the social housing rules — with area and construction-cost ceilings supervised by the IHRU and conditional tax benefits — and write that these families “can achieve a house at a price 50% to 70% lower than the current real estate market”. The case study was, curiously, a cooperative building in Vila Nova de Gaia, with a construction cost of €917/m² (2008/09). That was the model that the end of public support dismantled.
The second is European: Brysch & Czischke (2021) analyse 16 collaborative housing projects in 12 cities of 9 countries and conclude that affordability “does not necessarily result from lower construction costs”, but from design decisions — smaller units, less equipment, self-built phases — and from access to land. And they leave a sentence that should be read aloud before subscribing shares: in all the projects except two, at least one resident feels no saving at all against the market prices of the area.
“In each project (except for two cases), at least one resident claims no cost savings by living there.” Brysch & Czischke, Affordability through design, Housing Studies (2022)
The MOME discount exists, is measurable and is smaller than promised: 10–25% at Pedras against the new build, ~0–12% at Hera. It is not fraud — it is arithmetic. The model cuts the classic developer margin and the commissions, and gains tax exemptions of 1–2%; but it buys land at market price, delivers a fully finished product, hires a contractor and finances itself with a commercial bank — it does not use, in anything public up to 2026, the levers that in other countries produce Vienna's −27% (IIBW, 2023), Uruguay's −38% (eldiario, 2019) or the US's −51% (Urban Institute, 2010): land outside the market, zero profit distributed, smaller units, self-build, public financing. And what the design does not cut, the manager's fees — never disclosed — can very well put back.
For the buyer, the lesson is simple: a cooperative without an open cost book is a promise of a discount, not a discount. The “linear sum of costs” is only verifiable if the accounts are public — and that is exactly the problem a cooperative management tool should solve.
This is why we are building CoopHab: enrolments, instalments and a transparent budget, from the land to the deed, so that “at cost price” becomes an account the cooperative member can open.
see CoopHab ↗Depends on which market. Against the new build in the same areas: yes, 10–25% at Pedras.coop and ~10% on the T0 of Hera.coop (Vida Económica, 2023; idealista/news, 2024). Against the second-hand stock: no. Against the promised 20%: it stays below in both cases. Nothing has been handed over, so the final test — deed against deed — only exists from 2027 on.
It is not the cooperative form itself, it is what it cuts. In Vienna and Zurich it cuts profit distribution (rents −25% to −36%; IIBW, 2023; WBG, 2021). In Barcelona it cuts the land (public land on a 75-year concession) and the industrial margin (partial self-build: €850/m² of construction at La Borda; Lacol, 2018). In Uruguay it cuts labour (20h/week of the future residents: −20% to −25% on construction). The MOME model cuts none of these things — which is why the measured discount is a fraction of theirs.
It is unverifiable as a single number. MOME's own comparison (“the value of the market they are inserted in”) chooses the comparable — and against the top of the area's new build, the numbers approach 20%; against the market median, no. As no independent source had ever measured it, this is the first public reading — made on asking prices, with the limitations described in section 1.
No. MOME is doing something nobody in Portugal has done seriously — professionalising the management of housing cooperatives — and the numbers used are the ones the company itself and the press published. What this study asks for is what the company does not publish: the manager's fees and the cost book that supports the “cost price”. If MOME discloses them, the study is updated the same day.