Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Waiting Lists

[Robert Heinich (robert]

At Eno Commons we have a pretty simple system.

Although we do not have any houses for resale, following Rob Sandelin's sage 
advise of keeping a list of folks who expressed an interest in our cohousing 
community, we still give tours.  Those that come for a tour, their contact info 
is entered in our community web calendar on the date of the tour.  Should a 
neighbor need to move away, I point them to the web calendar which they have 
access to so they can contact the prospects directly and I help them create an 
ad for their house to place on community web site.  This is a win-win-win-win 
deal as the neighbor has a list of folks who expressed an interest living here, 
the community wins as the folks listed on web calendar are interested in the 
community, the prospects win as the neighbor will contact them and the prospect 
does not to keep checking the web site for openings and I win as it is minimal 
work for me.

Our membership process is self selecting  so the decision to live here is 
completely the prospective member's, but we want to make sure that they do that 
with their eyes wide open,  at least as much as possible.  Our policy is "If 
you like us, we probably will like you."

It seems to be working as neighbors who move away have not used a realtor to 
help them sell their houses (more $$$ in the neighbor's pocket) and we have 
been thrilled with our new neighbors.

-Robert Heinich
 Eno Commons
 Durham, NC
 where we have an open house for the newly completed Barn 
 (aka the work shop) Wednesday night.