Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: economic crisis

[Craig Ragland (craigragland]

Default rates for coho vs. not coho condos would definitely be interesting.

I've heard some assert that there are no cases to date of home
foreclosures in a built cohousing community. I have no idea whether
this is true or not, but would be curious to hear of specific
examples.

So far, what I've heard of are cases where foreclosure was avoided
because of the actions of subgroups or individuals within the
community. Of course, this is the type of "good news" story that
people would be more inclined to share with coho-visitors.

Craig
with just 16 years at Songaia

On Mon, Oct 6, 2008 at 11:32 AM, Rob Sandelin <floriferous [at] msn.com> wrote:
>
> The biggest disadvantage to many cohousing developments is the large
> mortgages involved. Mortgage defaults appear to be at the core of this
> particular crisis and it would be interesting to know what the overall
> percentage of mortgage default in cohousing is as compared to other condos
> of a similar price range.
>
> Clearly the community support potential within cohousing such as sharing
> resources, finding jobs and other social networking aspects make cohousing
> more personally secure. But hanging over many peoples heads is that huge
> monthly housing payment, and I have seen in some cases people take on high
> levels of monthly expenditure to live in community, in some cases higher
> than they would for any other form of housing.
>
> At Sharingwood a small handful of people are self employed and in a couple
> of cases have offered jobs to other community members.  This is based on
> individuals creating jobs, not as a community endeavor.  There are
> potentials for community based businesses within cohousing in some
> localities but again, the income required to live in a $300,000 plus housing
> unit can run substantially more than many jobs pay.
>
> Rob Sandelin
> 18 year resident
> Sharingwood Cohousing
>
>
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-- 
Craig Ragland

Coho/US executive director
http://www.cohousing.org
craig [at] cohousing.org

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