Re: Alternative financing
From: R.P. Aditya (adityagrot.org)
Date: Wed, 22 Oct 2014 20:45:43 -0700 (PDT)
On 22 October 2014 14:13, R Philip Dowds <rpdowds [at] comcast.net> wrote:
> Maybe what cohousing needs most is not fewer tenants but better
> bankers.

one day the proportion of the general population that is also the
cohousing population will be large enough for bankers to understand the
merits of cohousing -- unfortunately, right now cohousing is a small,
rounding error's worth of the enormous condo (typically in the US)
mortgage market and so it makes no sense to give preferential
treatment...

Maybe what we need is a "cohousing bank" that can legally construe
"willing to contribute X hours per month in labor in kind as part of
association dues" as an acceptable ability to pay -- of course, then,
the actuaries would make each participating adult take a health exam,
as they do for life insurance to assess the risk of early payout...

Adi

On Wed, Oct 22, 2014 at 04:18:57PM -0400, Tom Smyth wrote:
> 
> R Phillip: Very well said!
> 
> On 22 October 2014 14:13, R Philip Dowds <rpdowds [at] comcast.net> wrote:
> 
> >
> > I am guessing that tenancy is taken as a rough proxy for things that might
> > actually, legitimately concern a lender / investor:  poor maintenance, no
> > reserves, transiency, owner indifference, anonymity and alienation of the
> > occupants, and so on.  But if these were my concerns as a lender, and I
> > happened to have eyes and a brain, and I actually saw what was going in
> > cohousing communities, then I would be falling all over myself to offer low
> > cost loans to my best borrowers: cohousing households.
> >
> > Maybe the problem here is lack of eyes and brains.  In Cambridge MA,
> > two-thirds of our housing units are renter-occupied, and our City remains
> > safe and well-managed; even the public schools are credible.  Maybe what
> > cohousing needs most is not fewer tenants but better bankers.
> >
> > RPD
> >
> > > On Oct 22, 2014, at 1:37 PM, Sharon Villines <sharon [at] 
> > > sharonvillines.com>
> > wrote:
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > On Oct 22, 2014, at 1:31 PM, Kathryn McCamant <
> > kmccamant [at] cohousingpartners.com> wrote:
> > >
> > >>
> > >> If you have more renters than homeowners (owner occupied units), you
> > will
> > >> have a very hard time getting competitive mortgages. General
> > >> recommendation is to limit rentals to no more that 25-30% of your homes.
> > >
> > > Some recommend even lower 10-15%.
> > >
> > > Sharon
> > > ----
> > > Sharon Villines, Historic Takoma Park, Washington DC
> > > Where all roads lead to Casablanca
> > >
> > > _________________________________________________________________
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> > >
> > >
> >
> > _________________________________________________________________
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> >
> >
> >
> 
> 
> -- 
> Tom Smyth
> 
> Worker-Owner, Sassafras Tech Collective
> Specializing in innovative, usable tech for social change
> sassafras.coop *·* @sassafrastech
> 
> Resident, Touchstone Cohousing
> touchstonecohousing.org
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