Cohousing-L Mailing List: RE: Is Affordability Wanted?

[Rob Sandelin (robsan]

 Harry Pasternak  Asked:

* Or is this "cohousing" phenomenon in North America being taken out of
context, with homes primarily being developed for the former "yuppie"
market?---rather than the lower/middle income and middle income families,
that the vast majority of the collaborative/cooperative/cohousing homes in
Europe, have been developed for, over the past thirty years?


In my viewpoint, the answer to this is essentially yes. Privately 
owned, multimillion dollar cohousing developments require upper middle 
class incomes or assets.  In order to afford the kind of mortgages that 
have been created, you have to have considerable income.

One of the key elements which I think separates most other forms of 
intentional communities and cohousing is that cohousers demand private 
ownership and hire other people to work for them.  We hire architects, 
designers, consultants of all sorts, contractors and carpenters etc.  
It is not typical for a cohouser to have built their own house, 
although this does happen in some places.

For example at Sharingwood, a lot in phase 2 costs $35,000.  If you 
built a 1200 square foot house yourself at $40 a square foot (which is 
not unreasonable at all for build it yourself in our area) you have 
spent  $83,000.  Using the 2.5 income rule, and assuming $5,000 down, 
you would need to make $31,200 a year to qualify for a mortgage on 
$78,000, a sum which excludes about 80% of the teachers in the State of 
Washington. The median teacher salary in the State of Washington is 
$26K a year. (I keep using teachers as an example cause I used to be 
one, and left because I wanted to be a home owner, amoung other things)

So, in my opinion, home ownership is difficult at best unless you make 
an income of at least $30,000 a year.  I just got the real estate stats 
for my area, the average selling price of a house in my area has gone 
to $289,000. !!!!!!

The average income of the Love Isreal family, a local communal farm 
intentional community, is $2200.  They live very simply, in very small 
and to "normal" standards, pretty funky places.  There is no mortgage, 
no debt, little stress, lots of love and community.  Every thing they 
have, which is really quite impressive, they have done themselves, with 
their own labors, their own hands, their own hearts.  I asked a person 
there once where she lived and she swept her arm indicated the whole 
place and said, I live here.  I sleep in that (very small cabin) place there.

If you want to live cheaply, my opinion is to abandon cohousing/ 
private ownership and pool your resources with others in a coop or 
communal way.  You will get much much more for your money.

Rob Sandelin
Sharingwood