Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: cost estimates

[Marganne Meyer (marganne]

At 12:55 PM -0500 2/14/10, Diana E Carroll wrote:
> The projects that come in on schedule and on budget are the projects
> where the clients aren't pushing for lower projections up front when the
> schedule and budget are set.

This makes sense to me. You decide what you want, you get a realistic 
estimate of money and time, then make sure if there are overruns or 
problems that are not the members' faults, or are directly due to 
mistakes made by the contractor or developer, they pay for it. In the 
scenario you described, both the residents and builders were at fault 
for everything costing more and taking longer.

For people with fewer financial resources, keeping control over costs 
and schedules is a more important goal than trying to squeeze more 
out of less time and money. People with the same goals or values 
might work well in a cohousing project together.

Why is it acceptable to have someone charge you more money than what 
you originally agreed upon? Just because that's always the way it's 
been done? Maybe it really is unavoidable, but it really rubs me the 
wrong way. It makes me think of all the people who ran up their 
credit cards, then discovered they couldn't make the payments.