Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: which groups are co-ops?

[Craig Ragland (craigragland]

Songaia WAS a coop (pre-construction) and spent a lot of time on becoming
one. We believed it would be a harder  road to hoe, but worthwhile because
it seemed the most compatible with our values.

In the eleventh hour, we gave up and switched to a condominium structure
because of the lower interest rates available (>1% difference) and the
behavior of the very few coop-friendly banks when it came time for them to
actually make commitments rather than talk. I believe that our original
decision to structure ourselves as a coop added about at least a year to our
development cycle.

I might also note, that it was also much harder for prospective members to
understand and accept how they were really purchasing cooperative shares,
rather than a unit. On the positive side, going through this pain together
was bonding, which probably contributes to our low turn-over rate (1 sale in
5+ years).