Cohousing-L Mailing List: Steps to buy a house directly from owner (no realtor involved)

[Fred H Olson (fholson]

Veena Achar <veenaachar [at] hotmail.com>
is the author of the message below. 
It was posted by Fred the Cohousing-L list manager <fholson [at] cohousing.org> 
because the message included HTML ;      PLEASE do not post HTML, see
   http://csf.colorado.edu/cohousing/2001/msg01672.html  and
   http://www.harley.com/turn-off-html/
--------------------  FORWARDED MESSAGE FOLLOWS --------------------
Hello

we are going to buy a unit in a cohousing community in Bay Area,
California. We are buying a unit from members who have lived there for the
past two years. The current owners and we have agreed that it makes sense
to handle the paperwork directly (since t hey want to sell to us and we
want to buy from them and we have agreed on a price) 

Since we (both sides) are not going to use a realtor, my questions are

-has anyone in cohousing done this before without using a realtor?

-If so, what are the steps involved?

-we have heard that maybe we need to hire a real estate lawyer to make
sure that all paperwork gets done properly. If anyone can give us the name
of such a lawyer that they have used, that would be very helpful

-I checked online and there are sites that charge fees for some real
estate forms, but I am not sure if thats all one needs to do, plus if
there are seperate forms because the unit is part of a 'condominium' and
if real estate forms are state-specific

Any help/tips are appreciated! 
Thanks in advance 
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Veena Achar  
(hoping to buy a unit in Pleasant Hill Cohousing, Pleasant Hill, CA) 

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