Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: looking for built or nearly built cohousing elsewhere

[Bitner/Stevenson (lilbert]

We have something that sounds very like what you are looking for. A dear 
neighbor is moving out for family reasons, and she has a three-bedroom unit
for sale (I think she wants to move at the end of summer). We are located
next to downtown Sacramento, within walking distance of most of downtown,
including restaurants and shopping. Many of our members walk or bike to
work. It is a decidedly urban setting, but quite green, as this is a
residential area. Our 25 household community has been up and running for
nearly six years. The unit for sale is an end unit, with a south facing wall
for great light in winter and there is excellent shade in summer. There is
central air conditioning, too. It has a fireplace and the kitchen has a
dishwasher. I'm not sure what other appliances she will be leaving, but I
think she will be moving into a rental first, and will probably leave the
fridge. There are three bedrooms and a bath upstairs and the kitchen, living
room and den are downstairs. It hasn't been listed with the coho website or
on this list yet, since she's not sure what to ask on pricing just yet.
Just for a rough estimate- I have a sandwich unit without the fireplace and
only two exterior walls, and paid $140,600 five years ago. We have not had
the explosive real estate market that San Francisco has had the last few
years, but prices have gone up a little.


Sacramento is the Un-Seattle as far as weather is concerned. It is sunny,
hot and dry from May to October, then cool and rainy (some years) or cool
and foggy the rest of the time. The prices are much much lower for housing
as well(not that Seattle isn't worth it-just to give you an idea).

Sacramento is about halfway between SF and Reno, and the people here are
very outdoorsy- they tend to take mini vacations on weekends and go to the
City, or Tahoe, or Yosemite.

Many of the people here work for the State, but there is an increase in high
tech going on here, with its proximity to the Bay Area without the high
cost.  It's not a hotbed, like Silicon Valley, but it's growing very
rapidly.

There is one caveat, however.  The unit was sold as a low income unit to the
current owner, with second and third mortgages from the Sacramento HRA.  In
order to sell to a market rate buyer, she has to market it for three months
and not get a low income buyer. As a group, we'd like to keep it low-income,
since the deal goes with the house, and once it's gone, the money goes back
to the city. We'd prefer to keep the diversity of income we worked so hard
to get.
--
Liz Stevenson
Southside Park Cohousing
Sacramento, California




>
> We are looking for a 3-bedroom unit, preferably a townhouse or duplex
> rather than an apartment, in a cohousing community that is either up
> and running or pretty far along. We would prefer not to have to
> commute to our jobs by car.  We are very interested in some sort of
> shared childcare in the community (we don't have children yet but
> would like to soon). We prefer an area (but not necessarily a
> cohousing community) with a high density of technology people and
> technology jobs.
>
> Please suggest cohousing communities to us that might fit these
> criteria.