Cohousing-L Mailing List: Resale & Rental Pod at Takoma Village Cohousing was financing special projects

[Ann Zabaldo (zabaldo]

Hello all —

I presented on Takoma Vilage’s Resale & Rental Pod activities at the CohoUS 
conference in Durham, NC last May/June 2015.  Since then I’ve had writing about 
the Pod’s work to share with everyone on my ToDo List.  Alas … I’ve been busy 
w/ more resales here at TVC.  Also a few other projects including the upcoming 
Mid Atlantic Aging in Community Collaboratory Apr 8-10 and the Aging Better 
Together conference in SLC May 20-21, writing the Mid Atlantic Cohousing weekly 
newsletter, etc. etc.  .So that’s my excuse for not having something written 
for you all.

R&R Pod’s work is quite a complex work of art which requires a lot of care and 
feeding.  The results have been wonderful for TVC.  Not only because of the 
donations to the community but because we have helped smooth the way for owners 
to sell their homes and for buyers to become more easily integrated into the 
community.  

See below.

> On Mar 30, 2016, at 6:08 PM, Martha Wagner <wordbizpdx [at] gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Ann’s comments (below) are especially interesting to us and lead us to want 
> to know more. Does Takoma Park’s resale and rental pod serve as an 
> alternative to a realtor for members wanting to sell their unit providing the 
> same services as a realtor would, including all the paperwork, etc.?

We are very clear about this:  R&R does NOT serve as a realtor.  We are not 
realtors, lawyers or anything else other than neighbors. We do not get involved 
with the contract other than to suggest sellers purchase a legal packet to use. 
 Individual members of the Pod do answer questions as any neighbor would but 
not under the auspices of R&R.  We expect sellers to educate themselves about 
For Sale By Owner (FSBO) sales.

> Does the group also manage an active wait list?

This is our chief work:  the constant tending and propagating of a pool of 
buyers.  Marketing and Outreach all year long.

> What percentage of people selling make a sizable voluntary donation such as 
> the $20,000 per sale that you mentioned?

Sellers generally contribute between 1-3% of the sale of the home.  All 
voluntary.   On a $300K sale that $3,000.   We have had contributions of 
$10,000 and $5,000 and $2,000 that came before R&R was organized.  But those 
large size contributions were in the early years by three founders and many 
people did not contribute anything to the community upon selling.

This whole thing of voluntary contributions is part of a very integrated system 
of resales.  It’s not an island.

The R&R POD believes there are 3 entities involved when an owner sells a home:  
the seller, the buyer and the community.   All three entities have a vested 
interest in seeing that the process goes smoothly.  That’s our task on the R&R 
pod.  Through our work the seller can save an average of $20K on the sale of 
their home.  Sellers contribute a portion of the sale in acknowledgement of 
this saving.  But also because through our marketing and outreach we have this 
pool of potential buyers that is educated about cohousing and TVC.  So the home 
seller has some confidence that they are selling to someone who really wants to 
live in cohousing.

This is a very tiny slice of what the R&R process is about.  To the extent that 
it is helpful … good.  However, if you are going to embark on this path — which 
I hope you do! — there is much more for us to share with you.  And that will be 
as soon as I grapple with this.  I’m not trying to tease.   I’m just behind.  
:-(.


Onward!

Ann Z
Takoma Village
Washington DC

> 
>> Here at Takoma village we cover large capital improvements through careful 
>> funding of our reserve funds. 
>> 
>> Sometimes a project is funded through a combination of using reserve funds 
>> and donations from members.  
>> 
>> We have not used special assessments or any major fundraising targeted 
>> toward a particular project. Any "fundraising" that is done goes into the 
>> reserve fund. 
>> 
>> In the last three years our resale and rental pod has raised $30,000 in 
>> contributions by sellers who have contributed the money in acknowledgment of 
>> the money they saved by not using a real estate agent.  Our resale and 
>> rental pod saves homesellers an average of $20,000 per home sale.  The 
>> contributions are strictly voluntary. Funds go into the reserves for use on 
>> projects decided by the community. This past year the funds were used in 
>> part to buy the new solar array for our community. 
> 
> 
> 
> Martha Wagner
> Columbia Ecovillage
> Portland, OR
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Today's Topics:
> 
>  1. Re: financing for special projects (Lynn Nadeau / Maraiah)
>  2. Re: financing for special projects (Sharon Villines)
>  3. Katie McCamant to Speak April 26 in Fair Oaks CA (Mary Claus)
>  4. Re: facebook advertising (Linda H)
>  5. ZEGG forum (no relation to Landmark Forum) (Sarito Whatley)
> 
> 
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> Message: 1
> Date: Mon, 28 Mar 2016 09:14:22 -0700
> From: Lynn Nadeau / Maraiah <welcome [at] olympus.net>
> To: cohousing-l [at] cohousing.org
> Subject: Re: [C-L]_ financing for special projects
> Message-ID: <56F6A1B2-065E-459E-A6C7-8040308FA07E [at] olympus.net>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
> 
> Ann Zabaldo refers to funding special projects from "reserves". Here at 
> RoseWind Cohousing in Port Townsend WA our Reserves are specifically for 
> repair and replacement: eventual expenses for things like roofing, major 
> appliances etc. At one point we somewhat accidentally found ourselves 
> withsome undesignated funds (interest accrual, I think) and titled it 
> "Unallocated Funds". That has been a source of funding, with community 
> approval, for a few capital projects such as our greenhouse. There's not much 
> left in that fund at this point. Sometimes in our annual budget we have 
> created a Project Reserve, to accrue funding over multiple years for an 
> eventual capital expense, something we want but don't want to pay for all in 
> one year's budget. 
> 
> We try to bring up new projects at annual budget-setting time, but sometimes 
> bring a proposal to the community at other times which requires funding from 
> some other source(s), such as use of unallocated funds, funds already tagged 
> for some other purpose, or even donations. Right now for example we are 
> working out where to find the money, mid year, for an upgrade to our heating 
> ability for the  common house dining room. 
> 
> Maraiah Lynn Nadeau
> in the NW where it's 50 degrees, green and flowers everywhere
> 
> ------------------------------
> 
> Message: 2
> Date: Mon, 28 Mar 2016 14:12:42 -0400
> From: Sharon Villines <sharon [at] sharonvillines.com>
> To: cohousing-l [at] cohousing.org
> Subject: Re: [C-L]_ financing for special projects
> Message-ID: <F9A76077-3640-4D41-891E-60BA4CED0FA6 [at] sharonvillines.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8
> 
> 
>> On Mar 28, 2016, at 12:14 PM, Lynn Nadeau / Maraiah <welcome [at] 
>> olympus.net> wrote:
>> 
>> Ann Zabaldo refers to funding special projects from "reserves". Here at 
>> RoseWind Cohousing in Port Townsend WA our Reserves are specifically for 
>> repair and replacement: eventual expenses for things like roofing, major 
>> appliances etc.
> 
> Capital Replacement Funds are reserved for replacing those items that 
> "protect the capital investment of owners?  These replacements are expected 
> to replace at the standard that is current at the time of replacement, which 
> is usually much better than the original. Our standard in the Bylaws is 
> ?First Class.? If you didn?t do this, the capital investment would be 
> diminished because it didn?t keep up with the market.
> 
> This means that when you replace part of a piece of equipment covered in your 
> capital reserve study as a replacement or major repair, you can use those 
> funds. So while we didn?t have solar before, we did have electrical wires, 
> etc., that provided electrical service to our common lighting. We used the 
> funds saved for those items to upgrade the system to ?current first class? 
> standards. And will replace those funds with the savings from using solar 
> panels.
> 
> The total amount we save based on our reserve study is based on the amounts 
> we are expected to need at various points in time. That amount is based on 
> the cost of equipment and labor to replace each item, plus construction 
> inflation, minus expected interest on funds in the accounts (currently 
> zero!). But we don?t have a limit for replacing each item. We watch what is 
> calculated for each item but expend funds as needed, not limited to the 
> amount used to calculate the total. Then we recalculate the balance 
> periodically to adjust deposits up or down.
> 
> I think Rosewind funds for each item so when one item is funded, it is no 
> longer included in the total needed. This would restrict your planning, I 
> think. (This is old information so you may have changed.)
> 
> Sharon
> ----
> Sharon Villines
> Takoma Village Cohousing, Washington DC
> http://www.takomavillage.org
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> -
> 
> End of Cohousing-L Digest, Vol 146, Issue 26
> ********************************************
> 
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Best --

Ann Zabaldo
Takoma Village Cohousing
Washington, DC
Principal, Cohousing Collaborative, LLC
Falls Church, VA
202.546.4654

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