Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Help selling lots and houses

[Fred H Olson (fholson]

Joani Blank <Joani [at] swansway.com>
is the author of the message below.
It was posted by Fred the Cohousing-L list manager <fholson [at] cohousing.org>
--------------------  FORWARDED MESSAGE FOLLOWS --------------------


Responding to Kelly of Common Pastures Cohousing about the challenge
of "selling lots and houses" in her community.

I responded personally to Kelly, then realize that I wanted to tell
you all something I learned just this week. (I'm spending this week
and next here in North Carolina working on arrangements for the
National Conference here in July, of which I am co-coordinator, BTW
enjoying a cohousing house exchange with a couple from Solterra
Cohousing in nearby Durham)

Kelly was talking about needing help and ideas for selling units and
homes in a lot-development type cohousing model.  I told her that I'd
prefer to see her group focusing on building the social community,
attracting people to be a part of the community, to be members of the
group, to join them in building the community, rather than see
marketing as selling a lot or a house, that looks for all the world
like a conventional sale of real estate that happens to be located in
a really cool, close community.

It is interesting to contrast the community I'm staying in now,
Solterra which has been developed lot by lot over 6 or more years and
which still has a half dozen empty lots, lots to be built with
Pacifica a newbuilt more classic cohousing community just a few miles
from here.  Pacifica Cohousing has 46 units under construction of
which the first phase of 20 units is almost ready for occupation
(first folks expect to move in next month. Every unit is presold, AND
they have 50, that's right 50, households on their waiting list.
That's phenomenal, isn't it?

  I've heard that there are few other communities in areas--where
there are already as two or three existing communities--that are
fully expecting to have 100% presales and at least a dozen or two
households on their waiting lists at the time of move-in. Could we be
possibly be approaching the tipping point when seemingly all of a
sudden, the demand will be so great that many small towns and every
major metropolitan area in the US will be supporting the creation of
one or many cohousing communities in their town or city? In case that
tipping point is closer than we think, we're going to have to put a
lot of energy into expanding the tiny core of professionals whose
work is so crucial to the success of cohousing development in this
country, aren't we?

Joani Blank
Swan's Market Cohousing
Oakland, CA