Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Proforma help?

[Rowena Conkling (rowenac]

Cascadia Commons Cohousing wrote:

>
> 1.  How much did you spend overall, per unit, for marketing?

CambridgeCoho spent almost nothing.  We designed our own leaflets and posters
for and had them printed locally.  We got articles in the local papers and put
up infomation on this website (we got an out-of-town family that way).  Posters 
for special meetings were put up in
places such as day care centers (we were looking for families with young
children), libraries, cooperative food stores, etc..  When we got a big piece in
the Boston Globe it was linked to a major dog and pony show - 200 people showed
up and we got two or three families from it!  A few people (I'm one) showed up 
from other cohousing groups which had not made it.  Mostly I guess it was word 
of mouth.  Before each general meeting we had a brief introductory meeting for 
newcomers at which we described cohousing concepts and our proposed specific 
plans.

> 2.  How much did you spend per unit for units unsold at the time
> construction began.

A small group of us came up with cash to buy the land and finance initial
plans.  The money for construction was doled out as work was done, which is
usual with construction loans.

> 3.  How close were you to being sold out at the close of construction? By the
> time we got to the last draw down we had sold all the units except the ones
> were were selling to the Cambridge Housing Authority who couldn't buy unti l
> we had Certificates of Occupancy. Actually there may have been one other
> unsold.
>
> 4.  Did you sell any units through a real estate agent to whom you paid a
> regular commission?  No.
>
> Thanks again,  gs
>