Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Help!

[Ted Thibodeau Jr (thud]

the way that buy-in/sell-out is handled at one cohousing experiment
in Western Massachusetts is simple, but effective.

People buy in at fair market value of the land/building/whatever
is being apportioned, regardless of previous buy-in prices.

Sell-out is done at a fair return over their buy-in price, figured
on an individual basis.  The "fair return" is based on what they
might reasonably have received as return on investment had they
placed their funds in a mutual fund or similar.  I believe the
group has specified which fund (or perhaps it's T-bills) for ease
of computation and elimination of disagreements with the determination
of "fair return."

This does cause people who leave the group to lose some capital gains,
if we look strictly at real estate gains, and those proceed at a rate
above the securities/bonds/whatever gauge, but they know that at the
outset, and it is not a severe penalization, given that the prime reason
for participation in cohousing is not investment income.

It removes the potential for people in search of cheap housing signing
on for that reason above all else, for they don't get it.  They pay
essentially what they would elsewhere.

Sorry I don't remember the name of the community of which I speak.
It was founded by folks from Findhorn, and at least one of the authors
of ... mind blank ... one of the cohousing bibles.....

Thud