Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Coho and Renting/renting rooms

[Stuart Staniford-Chen (stanifor]

Judy writes:

> I'm wondering how much interest there might be in such a space, with, of
> course, use of all the common space and participation in the community.  Am 
> not sure of price range, either,  maybe $200/month?  

> Any experience other places to share?

This is based on my own experience in dealing with room-mates in a cohousing 
context, which I've been doing for the last four years.  We're in a student 
rental type area so that might make a difference.  My feeling is that the 
cohousing angle is a big help in the room-mate search.  We get to live with 
more interesting people more easily because of it (wouldn't you say Jeff :-). 
We've always had lots of interest when we've advertised at the right time of
year, and enough interest even when we had to advertise in March (the worst
time in a college town).

Make a long ad that gives some detail about the cohousing community and what 
it stands for, and what kind of lifestyle you lead and are looking to share 
with room-mates.   

Post it in a few likely places.  We have found that basically all the 
responses to our ads come from the one placed outside our local food-coop.

An ad in the paper that reads:

Looking for female room-mate.  Own room. $200 per month.

will net you lots of phone calls from people who probably won't be 
compatible with you.  A page long ad explaining your household and 
community will net you a lot fewer queries from people who are 
preselected to be reasonable prospects.  People you want to live with will 
probably be more interested in your values and lifestyle than in whether there 
is air conditioning or not.

As to what to charge, that's dependent on your local market.  Look in the 
local paper and see what most of the ads say for roughly comparable situations. 
 
Choose a number in the middle.  I certainly wouldn't charge a premium 
because it's cohousing - you don't want a room-mate to feel exploited.  
Round here, a single room is typically in the $250 - $350 a month range.  
But that may not mean much in your market.  Here's an old ad of ours (we are 
*not* currently looking for housemates) .  


                                *Need a Room?*
                                ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
                                
We are looking for two compatible housemates to share a house in an 
East Davis Cohousing Community with us.

The rooms:      One is medium sized and $265 per month; the other is slightly 
                smaller and $230 per month.  Move in date is March 15th 1993 or 
                April 1st 1993.  Afterwards lease runs September-September.

The house:      Standard-issue three bedroom ranch on back street close to 
                Albertson's.  Very nice garden.  Shared bathroom, kitchen, 
                living space and utility bills.  Woodshop in garage.

The community:  Nine houses with no back fences.  Get to interact with lots of 
                neat people who live here.  Some communal organisation, eg 
                community meals several times a week,  common house facilities 
                for use by all, jointly managed chickens.  Shared laundry 
                facilities, tools etc.  Run by a consensus process.  Some 
                attendance at monthly meetings and a $10 monthly fee are 
                expected.

Us:             We're a rather close knit couple, one a graduate student and 
                one a law student.  We're mostly fairly quiet and mostly fairly 
                clean and tidy but occasionally lapse on both fronts.  We're 
                vegetarian, and into recycling, conserving water etc.  We don't 
                smoke.

You:            We are looking for people who are moving at about the same 
                speed as us on most of the issues in the previous para.  Plus 
                of course we would like it if you are witty, fascinating, 
                tolerant but sensitive to others, multi-talented etc etc (but 
                only mortals need apply).  We don't want to live with kids and 
                the community banned dogs a while back.  Beyond that, you could 
                be of any gender, race, orientation, political slant and so 
                forth.  We're looking forward to finding out.  

                               <phone number>
                        Ask for Lynnette or Stuart


Stuart
(who clearly has too much time on his hands)
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Stuart Staniford-Chen           |       Dept of Computer Science
stanifor [at] cs.ucdavis.edu            |       UC Davis, Davis, CA 95616
(916) 752-2149  - work          |               and
(916) 756-8697  - home          |       N St. Cohousing Community
Home page is http://everest.cs.ucdavis.edu/~stanifor/home.html