Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Equity

[Sharon Villines (sharon]

on 8/17/2002 12:00 AM, Amy Cervantes at dnacervantes [at] earthlink.net wrote:

> Wondering what others have experienced in terms of being able to get equity
> loans in cohousing.  The reason I was wondering was that, from what I
> understand, homes in cohousing communities seem to gain value almost from the
> moment you move in due to the high demand and low availability (not much turn
> over, etc.)  But would a mortgage company necessarily take that into
> consideration when assessing the value?  It occurred to me there might be an
> "instant equity" advantage.

The problem is with appraisals. I just had my unit appraised to consider
refinancing. Banks are very conservative and will only consider
"comparables." Since there are no comparables, the value is not established.

The items which he could not consider because they don't exist elsewhere in
this neighborhood:

Geothermal HVAC
DSL with ethernet connections
Email addresses & web site
Huge commonhouse (in comparison to "normal" condos)
Guestrooms
Workshop
Office Equipment
Satellite television
Hot tub

If it doesn't already exist, or a unit has been sold in your cohousing
complex, the baseline doesn't exist.

Sharon
-- 
Sharon Villines
Takoma Village Cohousing, Washington DC
http://www.takomavillage.org




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