Cohousing-L Mailing List: costs/later joiners

[Judy (BAXTER%EPIHUB]

Rob Sandelin <robsan [at] microsoft.com> wrote: 27-JAN-1994 11:56:24.10

<Another point of view is to ask, why should costs be equitable? In most 
cases the people who come in early take all the financial risks, put in 
most of the effort and do much of the vision. Why shouldn't they be 
rewarded for that with a price advantage? Or, to put it the other way, 
why would anyone want to take the risks and make the effort if they can 
wait and buy in when everything is figured out, at the same cost 
without any of the effort?  All four built out groups in our area 
(Winslow, Puget Ridge, Sharingwood and Talking Circle) all had trouble 
getting people on board when there was lots of risk and design and 
other work to do, but had a large influx as the project neared, or was 
close to finalizing.
   At Sharingwood Cohousing, the founders paid cost for the lots 
($20,000). The last lot sold was at $43,000.  Some of that difference 
in cost was reflected in the development costs accrued but also some of 
that difference went into the common account of the group, and for 
those who bought an extra lot to give the group development capital 
when it was desparately needed, that difference is profit for them.
   The founders took all the financial risks, did all the development 
efforts and got essentially value returned for that work and risk in 
the form of cheaper lots. Now that all the work in our first phase is 
largely done, its amazing how many people we have who want to join the 
first phase and how none of those same people are interested in doing 
the development work in the second phase.
   That's why we are selling the first three memberships in the second 
phase (first phase is sold out) at a reduced rate and the rest of the 
memberships for $8,000 more.
Rob Sandelin
Sharingwood Cohousing
Puget Sound Cohousing Network
------------------------------------
That bit about people wanting to join 1st phase but not do development work
strikes fear in my heart.  So far, it's not so much that people (non-founders)
haven't been willing to do development work, but that they have done some work
as associate members, but haven't been ready to commit. (at Monterey
CoHousing).  I do understand that people don't want to do so much work - I
don't either, but I want to make this happen. 
  We too have two phases, and would like to reward the founders who have taken
all the risks and done all the work -- the problem is that (surprise!!) various
things we couldn't predict suggest that our costs are close to the limit for
the people who seem to be interested, and we don't want to price ourselves out
of the market.  There's a lot we don't know, however, about how our final costs
will come out, and I suspect if we do have an adjustment to make, it may be in
that direction.  
        I don't understand wy you are selling the first three memberships in
the second  phase (first phase is sold out) at a reduced rate ??
        We DO pay  (or rather, credit) 8% interest to people putting up dues
toward development costs, or loans, ditto.  Not huge, but something.

Judy Baxter, Monterey Cohousing Community, Twin Cities Area, Mpls/St.Paul MN
        (Mococo)                baxter [at] epivax.epi.umn.edu
Twin Cities CoHousing Network Voice Mail  612-930-7580
 Voice Mail for Monterey Cohousing - 612-930-7554