Cohousing-L Mailing List: RE: Financing doesn't define cohousing

[Eileen McCourt (emccourt]

I understood the self financed remark about Rosewind to mean that there was
no developer involved, but that each person was able to get construction
financing on their own, because each lot was owned by an individual, and
there is no property in common.  Or, if each home is pre-sold, the general
contractor can take out a speculation mortgage, or construction loan that
becomes converted to a conventional mortgage when the buyer takes
possession.   Is this the context for "self-financed" at Rosewind?

If it is, I think the distinction that Rob is making between communes and
cohousing still obtains.  Communes typically do not use conventional
financing, except perhaps for the property.  Most of the structures on a
communally owned property do not qualify for conventional mortgages.  If
conventional financing were unavailable or undesirable in cohousing, it
would severely limit accessibility for a huge number of people.  One would
have to be financially independent, AND willing to live in a very basic type
of dwelling, with few modern amenities, (of course, exceptions must be made
for the hot tub and sauna), unless fabulously wealthy.

In this context, I think the method of financing IS one of the defining
characteristics of cohousing.

--eileen

Eileen McCourt
Oak Creek Commons
Cohousing in Paso Robles, CA
emccourt [at] mindspring.com
http://oakcreekcommons.org





-----Original Message-----
From: cohousing-l-admin [at] cohousing.org
[mailto:cohousing-l-admin [at] cohousing.org]On Behalf Of Rob Sandelin
Sent: Sunday, May 13, 2001 8:23 AM
To: cohousing-l [at] cohousing.org
Subject: RE: [C-L]_Financing doesn't define cohousing

Wow. Rosewind has no bank supported mortgages? All the homes are privately
financed? You are the first and only cohousing group that I have heard that
uses that model.  Most cohouisng start ups are self financed, but later the
homes are then financed by mortgages. I imagine if you don't use bank
mortgages either owners hold the contracts or the buyers pay cash? How do
resales happen? I would think not having bank mortgages would  really limit
your ability to resell a home.

Rob Sandelin

-----Original Message-----
From: cohousing-l-admin [at] cohousing.org
[mailto:cohousing-l-admin [at] cohousing.org]On Behalf Of Lynn Nadeau
Sent: Saturday, May 12, 2001 8:16 AM
To: cohousing L
Subject: [C-L]_Financing doesn't define cohousing


Rob Sandelin wrote:
"Another primary difference between the two is that Cohousing is bank
financed, Communes are member financed.
....If cohousing were self  financed, it would be interesting to see how
many
aspects of it would change."

Excellent summary Rob. I would only differ in the "bank financed" part.
It certainly is not part the DEFINITION of cohousing, though it often
describes it. The mode of financing is simply a very frequent solution to
the challenge of finding the money. I'm certain RoseWind is not the only
group, especially among lot-development models, which is self financed.
Of note also is that, without being bank financed, our cohousing has
nonetheless chosen to be like your description, and not at all like the
"commune" description, except perhaps that we have more people with lower
than that income (which is true of our town in general), and more diverse
houses (probably typical of lot-development vs group-design process).

The rest of your description would be a good candidate for cut-and-paste
filing by us all, for when we inevitably have to answer that question. I
also appreciate the factual tone, rather than judgemental, since there
are, we know, communes in which people lead healthy, happy, and admirable
lives.  While granting that the media do not know that. (With a factual
definition like this in hand, the whole debate about whether we should
use the word, with its negative media connotations, is moot.)

Lynn Nadeau



Lynn Nadeau, RoseWind Cohousing
Port Townsend Washington (Victorian seaport, music, art, nature)
http://www.olypen.com/sstowell/rosewind
http://www.ptguide.com

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