Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Newly married couples in cohousing

[baschel (baschel]

Last week, MFN asked about recently married couples and first time 
homebuyers in cohousing.

I'm getting married this summer, and my fiance and I have been 
looking at the Cambridge Cohousing group.  We've put the decision on 
hold until we have a better idea what our life will look like next 
year. (I'm finishing grad school this spring, and need to find a 
job).  However, we had several concerns that might be of general 
interest:

    1.  If we joined, we would be the youngest people in the group by 
at least five years.  We kept on double-taking when people in the 
group referred to people in their thirties with children as "young 
couples."  I suppose it's accurate, but what does that make us?

    2.  If we're going to join a cohousing group, we'd want to get a 
house that was big enough that we wouldn't have to move if we had 
children, particularly since the probability of being able to trade 
up within the project is not terribly high.  But that would mean 
buying a larger house than we really need/can afford right now.  

    3.  Because of the age gap, and because we aren't planning on 
having children for a while, if we have children they would likely be 
the youngest children in the housing by a significant margin.  Having 
been the youngest in my extended family, I know that this can be 
problematic.

   I realize that there's not much a cohousing group can do about 
these concerns.  The basic problem, as with most of these "diversity 
issues" is money - - not many people in our age range can afford to 
buy a house.  We're very lucky in that Tony's folks would be willing 
to help us out on the downpayment as a wedding present, and even with 
that I have to admit that the idea of investing more than 100 percent 
of our net worth on something that is somewhat risky absolutely 
terrifies me.

    4.  Because we are at the start of our careers, there is a real 
possibility that for job or educational reasons, we would have to 
move within three to five years.  Cohousing, particularly when it is 
just being developed, appears to be a significantly less liquid 
investment even than regular housing, which isn't terribly liquid.  

    For these reasons, I would be very surprised to learn that there 
were many people in similar circumstances in cohousing.  If I'm 
wrong, I'd love to hear more about what their experiences have been.

    In spite of all this, we're still seriously considering 
cohousing, because we're both terribly hungry for community.

    Elizabeth"No one has the right to despair.
 We all share the responsibility to hope." -- Oscar Romero