Re: Finding a cohousing home from far away | <– Date –> <– Thread –> |
From: Morrison, Robert (romorriscabletron.com) | |
Date: Wed, 7 Apr 1999 17:57:51 -0500 |
On Wed, 07 Apr 1999, Arlene Hoffman <ahoffman [at] visualimage.com> wrote: Subject: finding a cohousing home from far away I am not in a cohousing group, but I have been following the cohousing movement in this list and elsewhere for 7 years. I am on the NH/MA border, 30 miles northwest of Boston. Short-term rentals in cohousing are occasionally available, and this is a good way to get the feel of a built community from the inside. I think you are doing the right thing by looking for a resale unit or possibly a new unit in a built community. "Attending" meetings by phone is feasible, but would require a high-quality speaker phone like the ones used in corporate conference rooms. Have any cohousing groups done this? I suspect some groups would be unwilling to bear the expense and labor of buying the equipment and setting it up at every meeting. In my opinion there is no substitute for attending in person. However, if a group transcribes the minutes of meetings promptly onto a computer and emails them, that would help avoid losing some of the continuity if you have to skip some meetings. You have raised an interesting issue about how to get to know a community between when you first find out that a unit is for sale and when you have to either commit to a purchase or lose your chance. Some resale units are sold to people on a waiting list and are never advertised to the public. Others are advertised, but by this time there may in fact be not enough time to get to know a community before you have to make a commitment. So one strategy is to check out several communities, get on the waiting list of one or two communities, and if they don't use a waiting list, ask them to notify you promptly when a unit becomes available for resale, preferably long before it is advertised to the public. I don't think being near a major airport would be a problem, if being within an hour's drive is sufficient. I don't think being near mountains would be a problem either. In fact, most of the cohousing communities in the U.S. are near mountains, not intentionally but by coincidence. Bob Morrison
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finding a cohousing home from far away Arlene Hoffman, April 7 1999
- Re: Finding a cohousing home from far away Morrison, Robert, April 7 1999
- RE: Finding a cohousing home from far away Rob Sandelin, April 8 1999
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