Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Affordable CoHousing

[Rob Sandelin (robsan]

I had an interesting discussion over the phone with a real estate 
salesman yesterday. One element he pointed out to me, which I hadn't 
really thought about too much, was that affordable is very relative.  
In a market, like the one in which I live, where the average new home 
cost is $279,000,(his numbers, not mine)  Sharingwood, which averages 
something like $159K is affordable housing.  He pointed out that 
virtually all new construction these days in my area  is of houses 
bigger than 2,500 sq feet and usually with pretty ornate detailing 
options, such as huge baths, fancy kitchens, formal dining rooms etc. 
because that is what people are willing to buy and that is what makes 
profits for builders which is why they build.  From his viewpoint, 
those are the selling features of a home.  He said people rarely ask 
about neighbors anymore, although that used to be a common question.

He  pointed out that home ownership is, and in his opinion will always 
be mostly limited to the middle and upper-middle class.  His viewpoint 
was that folks who do not have the income, have never been home owners 
and programs which provide subsidies for home owners really only target 
those on the income borders, people who are close, but not quite of the 
income to buy their own home.

His opinion was that families which make less than $35K a  year, are 
not going to be home owners (That leaves out pretty much every teacher 
in the State....) and in our market, only those families which make 
$50K and up can swing home ownership. After discussing cohousing 
development, he was of the opinion that no one should be allowed in a 
group who did not make a target income, and that income qualifying 
should be part of any groups pre-requisites for membership during the 
development stage.  His opinion was that to accept someone into a 
development group who did not have the capital means to acquire a 
mortgage, was a very bad idea.

Passing along ideas

Rob Sandelin
Sharingwood