Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: A Conversation on the Economic Crisis: How To Do It?

[Raines Cohen (rc3-coho-L]

This is a very important topic, and I'm glad to see the Association
responding to the need in the movement for attention to this area.
While I'm deeply engaged in pre-election activities (including
dovetailing some Get-Out-The-Vote work with a family wedding in a
swing state), I'd be willing to take an hour out for an initial
conversation, sooner rather than later, with an eye towards a larger
series of conversations to follow after the election.

I was just at the La Querencia cohousing grand opening in Fresno (CA)
on Sunday, and while it was heartening to see the beautiful
neighborhood risen from what was bare ground just fifteen months ago,
and a vibrant set of members in the process of moving in, with
cohousers from around the state gathering to show support, it was
clear that even some longtime group members were unable to buy the
units they had helped design -- because they couldn't sell their
existing homes for the prices they expected.

I understand that Silver Sage, the senior/elder cohousing neighborhood
in Boulder, CO, had similar challenges when it was completed early
this year, with some members dropping out for similar reasons. It is
worth looking at the creative solutions members there explored and
employed to keep people involved in the community: renting out rooms,
joining as housemates or co-buyers.

We can look to cohousing neighborhoods in cities that have already
experienced economic challenges for models of coping with downturns:
Touchstone in Ann Arbor, MI, for example, completed its initial phase
just as the largest employer left town, leaving it unable to sell
enough units to build the rest and pay for construction of a common
house. Delaware Street Commons in Lawrence, Kansas, rented out a bunch
of units that it couldn't easily sell. Mosaic Commons in
Massachusetts, like many new communities, is needing to complete some
cash sales to establish comparables before banks will rely on sale
prices to establish value for providing individual homeowner
mortgages. Even Doyle Street Cohousing in Emeryville, CA, the first in
the San Francisco Bay Area, took more than a year to sell its last few
units because it was completed just as a housing-market lull was
happening in the early 90s, yet it went on to eventually sell (without
discounting, to the best of my knowledge) and benefit from the rise
over the decade that followed.

Absolutely, times like these can lead to fear of commitment: on the
part of group members, as well as the professionals we rely on:
developers, lenders, even cities. But we can find ways to help people
get over these barriers, tap resources they didn't know existed, and
get motivated and supported to move further along the path to
community. Nobody ever promised that the road to community would be a
primrose-lined expressway, paved with silk... it can be a long and
twisty road, with dragons lurking in hidden corners.

Just as cohousing has benefited from its embrace of professional
development and conventional mortgage lending, it will be affected by
changes in the market, resource constraints, and external forces
affecting market dynamics. As Terri mentions, at the core we're
talking about Real Estate here, and location, location, location are
paramount; some markets will face different dynamics, with different
timing, moving opposite prevailing patterns.

Cohousing seems to me to be well-positioned to thrive during down
times in the economic cycle, _IF_ we can be effective at both
understanding and communicating how it helps people live richer,
simpler lives, in less space, with less stuff, using less energy, and
learning more from and connecting more deeply with each other.

At La Querencia this week, I had a brief conversation with a
professional cohousing developer about the potential to create loan
funds or other financing tools to help people buy cohousing units
before they can sell their existing homes; perhaps something in the
form of a silent second mortgage on both the old and the new homes, or
an equity-sharing arrangement that provides for recapture of future
appreciation.

Betsy and I have already been working with a land-trust that is
creating permanently-affordable cohousing, preparing to provide
short-term bridge loans to advance down-payment assistance for the new
first-time homebuyers there, backed up by commitments from a bank
program (normally the member bank would cover the float, but they're
experiencing their own well-publicized challenges at the moment).

And we and plenty of other cohousers have invested in the development
of other cohousing projects.

The potential is there, if we're willing to reach out and embrace the
opportunity and collaborate to cocreate the tools that will get us
through this.

Raines Cohen, Cohousing Coach, Planning for Sustainable Communities
http://www.CohousingCoach.com/

at Berkeley (CA) Cohousing