Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: realtors

[Lynn Nadeau (welcome]

In Port Townsend Washington we have a local title company that has 
handled all the paperwork for both project-to-first-owner sales, and 
owner-to-buyer direct resales. Plus the buyers did their own arrangements 
with financing. It has seemed to work fine. 

Some resales have used realtors. Observations:

House #1 was sold some years back via realtor on behalf of an estate. 
This led to problems. The family thought elderly mom was a kook and 
disapproved of her. After she died, the family members padlocked the 
house and then later sold it overnight, at a dropped price, via a realtor 
who knew nothing about cohousing. Though the RoseWind documents are 
attached to the deed, the buyer had not come to us seeking community and 
hadn't met any of us personally. She gave it a try, but it was not a good 
match. After a period of nonparticipation and upsets, she re-sold, using 
the same realtor, who once again wasn't being told how wonderful 
cohousing was. Again, the realtor majorly downplayed the cohousing 
aspect. Fortunately, we got lucky and the next buyer tried us out and is 
now an active participant. Lesson: Those who are selling are sometimes 
the least likely to extoll what a great experience cohousing is, and some 
realtors want to sell and it matters not to whom. 

House # 3 is for sale currently. The owner was not unhappy, just wanted 
to move to a farm with horses, which she did. The realtor is someone who 
is more familiar with RoseWind and thinks it's great. The owner made a 
deal with the realtor that if a contact came via cohousing connections, 
we would get a cut of the commission. I have noted, however, that even 
when dealing with people we sent her, the realtor has shown them a bunch 
of other properties in town, as well. If they come directly to us, we 
only show them what's here. 

House # 4 is the second one for sale currently. The sellers chose - for 
unrelated reasons - the same realtor who sold house #1. Even with these 
sellers, who have good things to say about cohousing, the realtor's 
publicity rather downplays it. 

We do of course meet and greet and orient potential buyers, whether they 
show up via realtors or personal or cohousing connections. Some of those 
who come via realtors ask questions like, "They don't tell you what to 
do, do they?" "What's the minimum amount of participation?" I do my best 
to cheerfully tell them it's wonderful, but a lot of work, and that 
though we don't require participation, we definitely *expect that each 
person will pitch in with some regularity. And that to join *despite the 
community aspect would be paying extra for no useful purpose.

Other houses and lots have been sold via our own Outreach team, matching 
inquirers with properties that are, or become available. 

So the jury's still out here, on using realtors, but we've seen some 
drawbacks.
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