Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Partnering with Realtors

[Sharon Villines (sharon]

> On Apr 22, 2024, at 1:49 PM, Mac Thomson via Cohousing-L <cohousing-l [at] 
> cohousing.org> wrote:
> 
> We are considering working with a realtor to bring more people into our 
> courtship process. My concern with realtors is that they don’t really 
> understand cohousing and the idea of selling community first; they just want 
> to sell homes.

We have worked with realtors in several different ways on different kinds of 
units. None were successful, that I know of. Plenty were unsuccessful. And 
except for the Big Recession, sell units very easily ourselves. We have a 
Resale and Rental Pod that works on this continuously keeping a notification 
list, holding tours, and arranging for interested parties to attend a meal, 
team meeting, and workday. I don’t think it is a requirement that they do all 
those things before we agree to notify them of openings, but it is emphasized — 
"do this now so you will be ready if a unit becomes available.”

I would recommend that you start this process now so people will understand 
what is what and will have time to think about it before they have to pay up. 
It is probably also a selling point to say we have 300+ people on our 
notification list (as we do).

A tip from a Cadillac dealer — every customer is equal to 12. They have 
Cadillac-worthy friends.

Tours do seem to go a long way.

Another tip is to talk about your available units on Cohousing-L — even share 
how the process is looking for you. You live in a target area — a place that 
many people dream of living in. They will move if the timing works. When Takoma 
Village started forming in DC, at least 10% of the new owners were not living 
in DC. They came from Florida, South Carolina, Texas, Maryland, etc.

> That being said, I could envision realtors bringing potential buyers to us 
> and then we go through the courtship process with the potential buyers to 
> figure out if they want to become actual buyers.


You might invite realtors to come to a tour and orientation session. They are 
in the crosshairs of people moving to the area so they could be good resources. 
The recent decision about who pays the realtor might complicate things.

And it raises the question if a realtor tells a client about the community but 
even though they don’t have a contract to sell a unit to them, do they still 
charge a fee to the purchaser.

I’m an optimist but I would encourage you to try the tour, orientation, visits, 
notification/sale process even if people are not ready to buy. Our tours are 
announced for people who want to learn about cohousing and are held quarterly 
whether we have an upcoming sale or not. 

[Mac, Ann Zabaldo has all the details of our process and could sell cohousing 
to a prison warden.]

Sharon
----
Sharon Villines
Takoma Village Cohousing, Washington DC
http://www.takomavillage.org