Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Early Stage Financing for Cohousing

[ken (gebser]

Another method, somewhat unconventional, is to start out small and use a
lot of sweat equity.  In brief, two or more families could start out by
squeezing themselves into one house.  If the house is in need of repair,
then chances are it could be had for cheap.  After fixing it up, sell it
and use the profits to buy up again.  Depending upon how good you are at
rehabbing and how smart you buy and sell, this shouldn't take long and
could save you years of mortgage payments.  This might be a solution for
the person who was looking for seed funding.  Having done this myself a
couple of times (and just for myself), I find its really nice not to
have a mortgage payment to make every month, not at all in fact.  I've
been looking for others who would want to give this a go here in the
Cleveland area, but I'm guessing it's just too much of an adventure for
folks.  If you can't rough it for a few years and put some time and
energy into your property, if you want your dream right now, it's going
to cost you.  If you can't afford it at all, then you might have to put
some effort into it and accept some place that's less than optimal.

Just my $0.02.

-- 
"This world ain't big enough for the both of us,"
said the big noema to the little noema.