Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Households with Children

[RowenaHC (RowenaHC]

Do not assume that units with 3-4 bedrooms will necessarily be purchased by families with children.   At Cambridge Cohousing we have apartments with one or two bedrooms occupied by families with children and 3-4 bedroom townhouses occupied by individuals or older couples!   There were actually a couple of large apartments designed with families in mind - but the families turned them down in favor of other units, so it's not clear that you cannot design for selection.

When our group was starting we also found that most of the early commitments were from empty nesters and singles.  To reassure the one or two families that expressed interest we made a commitment that we would save a minimum of 30% of the units for families with children under 15 and return promptly and without any questions any down payments made by families if we failed to meet that minimum.   We did make the minimum and more - the commitment made it easier to attract families.

Good luck
Rowena
CambridgeCoho