Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Question from a non-Cohousing Interested Party

[Elizabeth Stevenson (tamgoddess]

> I am starting to think about retirement options (what part of the country,
> what type of housing, etc.) and am really intrigued with the idea of
> cohousing.  My question to you is: is there a resale market for existing
> units?  Most of what I have seen on the Internet is sales of lots but not of
> the units themselves.

Existing units are hard to come by, because there is a lot of demand and
little supply. It is rare to see a unit for sale advertised in media that
the general public usually access. All sales in my community have been to
people we already know, with the exception of a few sales many years ago,
before the idea really caught on.

>Is there anything different about selling a cohousing
> unit?  

Yes. Most often the units are not sold through realtors, but privately. See
below.

>Does the seller determine the price or does the association have an
> interest?  

The seller usually determines the price, since it is almost always (I can't
think of an exception) owned by the seller alone, as a condo or separate
home ownership. An exception might be when there is affordable housing money
involved through an agency of some sort.

>Do prospective buyers have to be vetted by a committee?

This differs in different communities, but most have a procedure in place to
make sure the buyer is interested in community and not just the house.
Legally, there is little to prevent someone from joining a community and not
participating. However, most people wouldn't bother going through the hassle
of getting into cohousing without wanting to participate.
> 
> Sandy in Dallas

Cohousing is hard to get into. It requires an enormous effort to build it,
and there are a lot more people who want to be in it than people who are
capable of getting it built. I will tell you what I tell all the people who
want to get on our list of interested buyers. Make friends with someone who
might sell in the future, get involved with a cohousing group that is not
yet built, or start one of your own, if you're serious about wanting to live
in cohousing. We have never consulted our list of interested buyers to sell
a house. It has always been to someone who is either already involved in the
community (renter), or someone who knows a homeowner personally and has been
hand-picked by said homeowner.


-- 
Liz Stevenson
Southside Park Cohousing
Sacramento California
tamgoddess [at] attbi.com



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