Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: House location selection

[David G Adams (dadams]

Nancy said
> 
> Thanks to everyone who responded!  This will be very helpful for our
> ad-hoc house location selection committee meeting tonight. 

I hope I didn't miss your meeting tonight with this message.  I'll post our 
proposed selection method.  I don't think we've officially reached concensus 
on the method but there is general agreement.

If our current site goes through, we are dealing with existing duplexes 
arranged on a hillside.  Some have potential to be expanded into 3 or 4 
bedrooms and others don't, so Each household will be shoosing a house that 
fits its specific needs.

We are using a seniority method, but not how soon you get a 10% downpayment 
together.  Instead we are going by seniority based on initial "fair share" 
deposit.  The "fair share" idea was borrowed from one of the Amhearst MA 
area groups (I don't think we got it from New View, did we, Nancy?).  The 
initial investment for full membership in the group was $1000 (plus a $500 
payment to our consultants).  When we had almost spent all the $1000's we 
made a cash call for more money.  This assists our cash flow, since 
households don't need the full 10% before they become financially involved. 
 We have younger singles and couples who don't quite have the 10% yet.  We 
have empty nesters who are house rich but cash poor.  We have newcomers to 
Boston who have a large amount of cash from selling a previous home, and who 
need to reinvest the money in a house to avoid capital gains (that's my 
understanding of the tax laws; forgive me if I'm wrong).  Once we go through 
 a process to determine which household want how much house, we will begin 
to prorate the fair share as a percentage of expected house cost.

By requiring an initial payment that is small but significant, I belive we 
can help achieve some economic and age diversity in the group that would not 
be possible requiring 10% up front.  Note that the fair share is growing, 
and will be over $2000 within a month.  We have a budget with projected cash 
calls for the next 12 months or so, at which time we hope to close on a 
development loan.

Dave Adams
Cornerstone

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