Cohousing-L Mailing List: RE: Development Financial Structure

[Rob Sandelin (floriferous]

So how to pay for:
Land option: (Usually a minimum of 10% of the asking price to hold it for a
year, often way more)
Architects work: Concept through construction permitable drawings,
$10-40,000.
Legal Work: Group incorp, land purchase contract: $5,000
Permit work: Infrastructure cost, Hearings, fees, Varies wildly with
municipality.
???????????????????????????????????

In order to get any bank loan, at least as far as I know, you have to have
ALL these things done, because you must have a building permitable project
before the bank will loan you a dime. So who pays these costs if its not the
core group? Its either the core group membership or a developer. Or is there
some other options that I have not heard about yet? There was a scheme at
one time where relatively high priced "bridge" loans were available from a
couple of sources. Do these still exist?

Real estate development is NOT free, and usually its not cheap or easy
either. If you want to create a process to ask for money in a humane way
that makes tons of sense, but every once in awhile I have met up with
forming cohousing groups who seem to believe in magic, that somebody will
come along and  pay for their project for them and they will not have any of
the risk. Maybe some of the developer driven groups have accomplished this,
but I can't imagine why a developer would do this myself. Cohousing seems
like such a wacky thing from a conventional profit motive sort of thinking.
And of course, a developers profit then has potential to add to the costs
some, but if that's where your startup money comes from, you have few
choices.

Community attracts a fair number of dreamers. Sometimes a few of these
dreamers with no funds can find or create a situation where they can buy
their first home. And sometimes they can't. Its a sad thing to say goodbye
to a potential neighbor, especially one you really like, because they can't
get a mortgage or don't want to put themselves in dire financial straits by
taking a high stakes mortgage.

Rob Sandelin
Sharingwood




-----Original Message-----
From: cohousing-l-admin [at] cohousing.org
[mailto:cohousing-l-admin [at] cohousing.org]On Behalf Of Catya
Belfer-Shevett
Sent: Monday, November 18, 2002 7:01 PM
To: cohousing-l [at] cohousing.org
Subject: RE: [C-L]_Development Financial Structure



> thanks for your financial comments.  How can we change this to
> include lower
> middle income  even if not the poor?

We have a membership structure that requires a 5% downpayment from equity
members - we have a standard schedule for how long it should take to reach
that number, but families can make individual arrangements with the finance
team as needed for their circumstances.

We also have a strong associate status, so people who aren't sure if they
can afford it or not can stay in that role as needed.

All of this stuff is on our website: http://www.mosaic-commons.org

        - catya


                              ____
Catya Belfer-Shevett      ____\  /      Interested in
catya [at] pobox.com           \  / \/      Cohousing in MA?
www.catya.org              \/       www.mosaic-commons.org

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