Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Limiting whole-house renting in CoHousing

[Elizabeth Magill (pastorlizm]

I don't see how limiting lease length contributes to building
community? Like maybe you want leases of *no less* than a year? You
want stability, right?

The other idea I'd offer is creating a rentals team that goes out and
looks for renters/leasers who are looking for cohousing. Then your
community will be full of co-housers, some leasing, some owning.

-Liz
(The Rev. Dr.) Elizabeth Mae Magill
Pastor, Ashburnham Community Church
Minister to the Affiliates, Ecclesia Ministries
www.elizabethmaemagill.com
508-450-0431

On Tue, Jun 21, 2022 at 10:24 AM Sara Gottlieb <sara.gottlieb [at] gmail.com> 
wrote:
>
> Hello CoHousers!
>
> I write from Lake Claire Community CoHousing in Atlanta, GA, USA.  We are a
> very small community (13 households) that has been in existence since
> ~1996.  Last year, one of our households, in a hurry to sell their home,
> sold to a non-resident investor whose intention was to rent the house for
> income.  While the situation has (so far) worked out well for the community
> - we were very involved in recruiting renters, and they are very involved,
> community-minded people - the situation raised a lot of concerns that this
> could become a trend with very detrimental impacts on community.  All of us
> receive multiple calls, emails, text messages, and mailings every day from
> investors looking to buy our homes.  Some of our residents are aging and
> could find themselves in a position of needing to sell quickly.
>
> We started a discussion about ways to prevent this from happening*, while
> allowing our residents to rent our homes during times of need (have to move
> temporarily to help an ill family member, have to move during a time when
> house prices are depressed and want to wait for the market to recover,
> etc.)  At least one of our residents is opposed to any limits on house
> rentals and doesn't think we have any reason to be concerned that this will
> become a trend.
>
> I was asked to put this question out to the larger CoHousing community to
> see what other communities (especially smaller ones) have done about this
> issue.  Thank you for your input!
>
> --
>
> Sara J. Gottlieb
> Lake Claire CoHousing Community, Atlanta, GA USA
> sara.gottlieb [at] gmail.com
>
>
> *Options we considered include:
>
> 1. Limit % of homes that can be rented at any one time
>
> 2. Limit whole-house rental to owners who have lived in the community for a
> minimum amount of time (e.g. 1 year)
>
> 3. Limit lease lengths to the amount of time owner has lived in community
> (lived here for 1 year?  You can only lease your house to someone else for
> a maximum of 1 year, etc.)
>
> 4. Minimum lease length (to avoid an AirBnB situation)
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