Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: What SHOULD I be worried about?

[Kathryn McCamant (kmccamant]

Well, I do typically put in $20K in the initial development budget to help
furnish the common house, but that is not part of the HOA Budget or
reserve fund.

In California, we have to submit all of our HOA documents, including the
HOA budget (both annual operating budget and reserve fund) to the State
Dept of Real Estate for approval, so we usually hire an HOA Budget
Consultant to work out the budget amount (including the amount of reserves
from his initial 30 yr projections) and do all the forms for the DRE.
While working stuff thru the Dept of Real Estate can be frustrating and
time consuming, over time I have found their conservative approach means
we have really good HOA Budgets that have stood the test of time with only
minimal annual adjustments. An example of how more costs upfront helps
keeps down your increases over time.

Katie 

-- 
Kathryn McCamant, President, Architect
CoHousing Partners, LLC
241 Commercial Street
Nevada City, CA 95959
T.530.478.1970  C.916.798.4755
www.cohousingpartners.com





On 6/24/14 11:19 AM, "Sharon Villines" <sharon [at] sharonvillines.com> wrote:

>
>
>On Jun 20, 2014, at 5:12 PM, Kathryn McCamant
><kmccamant [at] cohousingpartners.com> wrote:
>
>> Development budgets are so tight these days, I would hesitate
>> to add reserve funding out of the development budget.
>
>We did have a reserve fund starter and tables, chairs, and dishes and for
>the kitchen, as part of the budget. The reserve fund wasn't huge but
>$20,000 I think. 
>
>The advantage of putting them in the development budget was that they
>were then part of our mortgages.
>
>Another question -- how do you determine the amount of the condo fee?
>After we moved in our management company told us we would have to raise
>our fees 65-70%. We found we did have to but it took 3-4 years to get
>there.
>
>Sharon
>----
>Sharon Villines
>Takoma Village Cohousing, Washington DC
>http://www.takomavillage.org
>
>
>
>
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