Cohousing-L Mailing List: Common House Costs

[Joani Blank (jeblank]

Lynn asks:
>What are the expenses that are specific to your common house? Such things 
>as maintenance, additional insurance, fuel and power bills, phone 
>service, office and kitchen equipment maintenance, cleaning, trash 
>removal. (Not meal service, as I assume that cost is split among the 
>users.)

Well, most coho communities jointly purchase some staple foods as well as
condiments, etc. The number of items that groups consider staples varies
quite a bit. A few do bulk food purchasing both for common meals and also
for purchase by individual households from the bulk supply.  

In addition to the items that you mentioned above and food staples, you
will want to budget for grounds care and/or landscaping (even if you do it
all yourself, you ongoingly have to buy plant stock and other supplies)
bookkeeping/accounting (if you don't have the skill internally), cleaning
and maintenance supplies. Some states (California is one) require that if
you are a condominium association--I don't think you are at Rosewind--you
must have a long-term reserve. It is a repository for funds needed for
large capital improvements or like replacing a roof.  In addition to
requiring that we have a long term reserve, California also require that
every three or four years we have a reserve study to determine if our
reserve is adequate. I believe the one we had last year cost $350. 

I'm sure I've forgotten something, but others will undoubtedly respond to
your query as well.

Joani Blank
Doyle St./ Old Oakland