Cohousing-L Mailing List: Room rental in cohousing

[Don Maddox (donm]

Hello Everybody,

I've posted to cohousing-l off and on for several years but have been
absent from the list for quite a few months now.  I will probably be
more active now because I have recently joined Jewell Hill Cohousing
in Sebastopol, Ca.

I'm single and would have taken the normal route of purchasing
a 1 or 2 bedroom unit. However, the smaller units are all spoken for so
I am considering purchasing a larger unit, probably a 4 bedroom, and
renting two bedrooms and a bath and sharing the den and kitchen.  This
approach is appealing to me and others in Jewell Hill since renting
would open our community to people with less income.

I would be interested in hearing from others in cohousing who have
rented rooms in their community homes.  Some of the questions I have
are:

1. Is there a ready market in your area for cohousing renters.  Have
you found it easy or difficult to rent rooms?  I hope it's not
relatively as hard to find renters in cohousing as it is to find
buyers?

2. What is your process for finding renters?  Do you advertise to the
general public or do you rely primarily on contacts within your
cohousing network?

3. What kind of selection process do you use to qualify renters?  Do
you require consensus of all households in the community?  I would
think that the selection process would have to be less stringent for
renters than for full members.

4. Do you assess renters monthly for common facilities use and
maintenance or is that assessment by household?

I have questions on the authority given to renters in consensus decision
making but there are several articles in cohousing-l archives with
this subject.

Thanks in advance for any information you can give me on the above or
any other topic concerning renters in cohousing that you feel would be
helpful to me in the formative stage I am in.

...Don

donm [at] sonic.net
Jewell Hill Cohousing
Sebastopol, Ca