Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: appraisals

[Lynn Nadeau / Maraiah (welcome]

Does it being cohousing add to the value? Of course, if that's an amenity you 
want. 

If you buy a lot-and-house at RoseWind Cohousing, in Port Townsend WA, where I 
live, you not only get the house and 5000 sq ft lot, but 4.5 acres of common 
lands, a beautiful big common house to use,  big vegetable garden, some 
orchards, berries, bees, playground swingset, equipment you can borrow, and 
best of all, 40+ neighbors who then consider you part of their community, some 
of whom are apt to quickly become your friends. Not like "just" buying a house. 
This is especially valuable to anyone moving here from some other area. 

Keeping all this up costs money: our operating and reserves budget comes to 
about $1000 a year per household, our assessments. For county tax appraisal, 
our properties seem to be "worth" about $45K more than comparable single lots. 
As resales, mostly ours go for about market value of comparable non-cohousing 
properties, as I look back over the years. If we only have one resale 
available, it may sell for more. Often we have none, as is the case now. 

But it certainly doesn't strike me as inappropriate that a property should be 
asking more, even a lot more, because of the amenities, tangible and 
intangible, of cohousing, especially in communities which have already evolved 
into going concerns. 

Maraiah Lynn Nadeau
www.rosewind.org