Re: Raising money
From: David Mandel (dlmandelantwerpen.com)
Date: Sat, 9 Sep 2000 02:14:10 -0600 (MDT)
We agreed about a year after moving in to borrow up to a set maximum amount from
our accumulating reserves for capital improvement projects. We calculated how 
much
we would have to collect per month to pay it back over five years, created a
sliding scale (by house size and ability to pay) and asked every household to
choose it's appropriate level. The range was from $1 to $10 a month, consciously
exaggerated to make up a bit for the lack of any consideration of economic 
status
in our regular monthly HOA fees. We successfully repaid the reserves in five 
years
and recently renewed the program for five more, this time raising the amount --
and the pledge levels, from $2 to $20 a month.
David Mandel
Southside Park, Sacramento

Berrins [at] aol.com wrote:

> We are on the "home stretch" at Pathways; everyone has moved in (last one in
> June) and the last bits of development work (landscaping and Common House)
> are proceding and should be done by next month.
>
> We had an initial guesstimated budget when we started.  We crude-tuned the
> budget when land and building costs were ball-parked by the contractor,
> medium-tuned it when the buildings were designed and fine tuned it as the
> sub-contractor bids came in and work progressed.
>
> To stay within the budget, along the way we had to jettison many wonderful
> design plans.  Several of these were put on a list of things to be done
> "sometime in the future."  We have also come up with ideas  as the project
> was being built.  Some were done (called a change order), some not, and some
> put off 'til later.  This, as I understand it, is pretty much the way
> projects like ours are built.
>
> Well, the future is almost here.  We want to start planning to get some of
> those wonderful design things back, not to mention be able to take of emergenc
> y money needs.  So, we will soon be discussing ideas on raising money.  I
> know this issue has been discussed before, but we'll pay attention this time,
> I swear it!
>
> What have other communities done to raise money above and beyond the
> association dues?  Volunteer contributions?  Assessments to the association
> dues?  Take out a loan?  Fund-raisers?  What works, what doesn't?
>
>     Thanks-
>
>     Roger Berman
>     Pathways Cohousing
>     Northampton, MA

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