Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Variations on low cost housing

[Rod Lambert (rod]

Maganne,
We have a waiting list here(EcoVillage at Ithaca) so it has not been a problem yet to 
sell anything. Any sales including the biggest home (2000sf+) have been higher then it 
cost to build. Everybody has got the price they asked for. A 3 bedroom, 1200sf house that 
I designed here (which is also now being built in nearby White Hawk for $140k including 
common costs) just sold here for $255k, albeit with significant "feature creep".
The second nbhd (SoNG)in comparison to the first, has the biggest and the smallest house 
as well as the most and least expensive. I have not been aware of any 
distinctions/problems occurring because of mixing small (500sf) with larger homes (2000 
sf) In fact some of our best "citizens" have been renters.

Rod


> > Date: Wed, 21 May 2008 10:56:43 -0700
From: Marganne <marganne [at] macnexus.org>
Subject: Re: [C-L]_ Variations on low cost housing
To: Cohousing-L <cohousing-l [at] cohousing.org>
Message-ID: <a06240873c45a112abb7d@[192.168.0.2]>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed"

Rod,

So glad to hear about yet another way to 'crack the nut'. You ended 
up in 2003 with a mix of low cost homes located next to 
not-so-low-cost homes? What's happened since 2003 with comparative 
values to the surrounding community? Are prices for the more 
expensive houses within the project being adversely affected by being 
mixed with lower-cost housing? Or is it not that simple.

Cheers!
> > Marganne

At 5:36 PM -0400 5/19/08, Rod Lambert wrote:

> >A caveat with the hybrid approach is, that in allowing more freedom of
> >choice, the prospective owner must exercise serious discipline if the
> >budget is king. They must "follow the script" to meet budget and not be
> >tempted to emulate what their neighbor is doing to their house ("feature
> >creep"). It also requires frequent updates on cost estimates so that the
> >owner quickly sees the results of making changes. Several people here
> >did follow the script and got very low cost, well-built homes. ($70/sf
> >in 2003) But several people also paid significantly more then they
> >originally expected mostly because of the reasons mentioned above.
> >(However almost everyone got good value for what they paid.)
>