Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Involvement in Closing of Home Sales

[Ann Zabaldo (zabaldo]

Hello Bob —

You are TOTALLY correct — you can NOT depend on an agent or the seller to 
educate the buyer.  You are singing my tune.

Education has to be done long before there is a sales contract.  That is why at 
Takoma Village in DC we have robust Resale and Orientation pods (committees) to 
educate the potential buyer and to facilitate the sale of the home.  We 
eliminate real estate agents saving the home owner an average of $20,000 per 
sale.  But more importantly,  we get new neighbors who are aware of the 
expectations of living here.

Julie’s original post, however, was about putting language into the sales 
contract advising the buyer that he/she is buying into cohousing.  How does 
that educate the potential buyer?  It can throw up a red flag if he/she reads 
the contract closely enough.  Then, hopefully, someone other than the agent is 
answering the questions.  That’s the best case scenario.  If you want to depend 
on the sales contract alone to educate the buyer then you’d have to include all 
your policies in the contract including workshare.


Best --

Ann Zabaldo
Takoma Village Cohousing
Washington, DC
Principal, Cohousing Collaborative, LLC
Falls Church, VA
202.546.4654

As long as you have two or fewer … your ducks are always in a row.  The Covert 
Comic



> On Jun 14, 2017, at 12:05 PM, Bob Leigh <bobleigh [at] twomeeps.com> wrote:
> 
> 
> It's not enough to expect the seller or real estate agent to educate the 
> buyer. At Cornerstone, we found out the hard way when an agent told a buyer 
> that all the landscape work was handled by the HoA. The buyer found out 
> _after_ buying, what that meant was all of us pitch in to do it.
> 
> Bob Leigh
> Cornerstone Village Cohousing
> Cambridge MA
>