Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Getting New Members to Make a Commitment

[Becky Weaver (beckyweaver]

Hi Judy,
   
  Congratulations on everything you have accomplished so far! 
   
  Can you offer a discount to people who make a commitment before the start of 
construction? Or, to put it another way, raise prices after the start of 
construction?
   
  This is a common practice for home-builders because of the situation you're 
in. Early commitments will save your project money compared to last-minute 
buyers, so you are basically passing those savings (or costs) along to the 
buyers. 
   
  Another motivating factor for buyers in our community (which is in roughly a 
similar stage to yours) is unit selection. People are committing early in order 
to get the unit size (i.e. price) and location of their choice. Maybe you can 
emphasize that to your potential buyers. 
   
  Sincerely,
   
  Becky Weaver
  Central Austin Cohousing/Kaleidoscope Village
  Austin, TX
  
Pacific Gardens Cohousing <judy [at] pacificgardens.ca> wrote:
  ...We seem to
have lots of interest but no commitment from interested people. Everyone
seems to want to wait until we're actually building to sign on so we find
ourselves in a Catch-22 situation. We can't get financing until we have more
owners and we can't seem to get more owners until we're building. ...