Cohousing-L Mailing List: Retrofit Cohousing group forming in SF Bay Area

[ruthpoet (ruthpoet]

Hi everyone,

I just posted the ad below on Craigslist tonight, and would love to be in touch 
with other folks who might want to create a small retrofit cohousing set-up in 
Berkeley, Oakland or Alameda in the near future. Thanks for any leads you can 
offer!

In the spirit,
Ruth
(ruthpoet [at] aol.com)

$125000 Co-housing opportunity in North Berkeley! (or elsewhere) (berkeley 
north / hills)




Reply to: your anonymous craigslist address will appear here [?]

Date: 2008-09-11,  1:23AM PDT






I'm looking for one or more partner(s) to jointly buy a building and
create our own version of a cohousing community together. There are
some GREAT-looking multi-family properties for sale right now at
amazing prices - for instance, a 4-unit building on Evelyn Ave. in N.
Berkeley for only $499K! Also some other great buys near Ashby BART in
Berkeley, near Lake Merritt in Oakland, and in Alameda. Lots of
choices, in other words, with individual units able to sell for
$125-$175K depending on exact size and location. It's easier than it's
been for many, many years to create "retrofit" (i.e., using existing
buildings) co-housing in the Bay Area. Let's seize the moment!





VISION:




Co-housing means sharing resources and community to whatever degree
we mutually agree on. I'd like to (possibly) share my car, have at
least one meal a week together, share tools, do some group projects
together... but also have our own separate lives. I would seek to build
this kind of community with other folks who, like me, are mature,
responsible, queer-friendly, open to diversity of various kinds,
creative, politically progressive, ideally spiritually-oriented
(Buddhist or other meditation practices), etc.- and who genuinely want
to build community (rather than just seek a cheap way to buy real
estate.)





LOGISTICS:




I have enough for a 10% down payment ($50-70K) on a property in
this price range, but most lenders want 20% these days. If I find three
other partners with five percent down each, we'd be fine... OR if I
find one other partner with 10% down available, we could do a
partly-owned, partly-rented affordable cohousing community, which would
be great too. (From what I've seen, rentals in cohousing communities
are usually priced way above market rents - but with these prices,
these units could be market rate rentals.) Legally we would purchase as
tenants in common (TIC) which is common these days - we could define
whatever ownership interests made sense according to how much down we
each put in, plus other factors (like unit size, sweat equity, etc.)




Interested in talking further? Please email me a little about
yourself, including whether you're familiar with cohousing, what
appeals to you about this kind of situation, what kind of down payment
funds you have available, and anything else you'd like me to know - and
if it sounds like we have some potential compatibility, I'll promptly
email back, or call you if you give me a phone number. Thanks for
visioning!