Re: Referral Fees?
From: Craig Ragland (craigraglandgmail.com)
Date: Wed, 12 Jul 2006 13:19:28 -0700 (PDT)
I have heard privately from people who are interested in this idea - I
encourage one or more to reply to the whole list and share their thoughts...

I have not, yet, heard from anybody who has actually tried referral fees -
although many cohousing units have been placed on the commercial real estate
market, with those associated "finder fees."

Songaia never even considered their use - as a community, we were passionate
(back in the 90's) about not being soiled by the potential conflict of
interest between money and building our community. After many years of
dealing with the realities of property ownership and community management,
some of us have mellowed in that stance and are more open to using money as
a tool.

So, this is my second attempt to ask for input on this from the collective
wisdom of the Cohousing Listserv.

Craig

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Craig Ragland <craigragland [at] gmail.com>
Date: Jul 8, 2006 9:15 PM
Subject: [C-L]_ Referral Fees?
To: Cohousing-L <cohousing-l [at] cohousing.org>

I was wondering if people had experience using referral fees?

In looking at the archives, I found this ad from 2003:

--------------OLD 2003 LISTING----------------

Send someone to Colorado Springs Cohousing, earn $1,000

Louise Conner or Casa Verde Commons (Colorado Springs, CO) writes:

We are happy to say that we've completed the construction of our 34 home
plus common house community. We've sold or have under contract 27 homes,
with 7 homes in two floorplans available. Most of us have moved in, have
shared meals twice a week since last January, working on the garden area,
and expecting our xeriscaping any day now. We enjoy a wonderful climate
in a city of nearly 500,000, with national forests and Pikes Peak at the
edge of town.

We will pay any cohouser outside our community who sends us a homebuyer a
reward of $1,000. The buyers you refer to us need to tell us that you
sent them our way. That's all there is to it! [if any of you reading this
happen to buy, please do say that Coho/US sent you! We need the dough.
Other donations also welcome.]

http://www.ColoSpringsCohousing.com/ <http://www.colospringscohousing.com/>

--------------END OF OLD LISTING--------------------

Anybody out there from Colorado Springs?

Any other community experiences with Referral Fees as a tool for finding new
members? Its pretty clear that the economic value of new members can be
pretty high. I'm curious about what has and has not worked in this area...
My community, Songaia, never tried it.

Craig Ragland
Songaia Cohousing

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