Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: follow on question to "interested people" discussion

[Elizabeth Magill (pastorlizm]

In my experience, as someone who could barely afford this project
until I inherited a hunk of money, a big challenge of a
"self-developed" project is that you need a LOT of money.
Which means you need mostly people who can afford to put in a lot of
money at the start.

Our deal was roughly that you could be an associate for a long time at
50 or $75 per month--but the longer you waited you were missing the
sign-up priority for which house you wanted....

Once you joined you put in the 5% of the estimated cost of the
house...a few of us had payment plans but mostly the group needed that
cash.
Then the cost of the houses went up and folk put in extra to get to
the 5%--again some folk couldn't pay additional that right away, but
*mostly* folk were in the group that could afford to do that.

In the end all but two (i think) of the original folk put in 20% of
the cost of their home into the project. Several folk put in more than
that. And all of that money was at risk.

In addition to needing people who have free cash in order to
self-develop, I think we'd have been wiser to ask folk to actually
fill out loan applications and qualify for mortgages much earlier.
Unexpectedly, lots of people don't  know what they can afford and so
were planning to buy a house for which they were not going to
qualify......

Liz
Mosaic commons in Berlin MA.


On Tue, Oct 3, 2017 at 10:37 AM, Michelle Keiserman <msmakman1 [at] gmail.com> 
wrote:
> We at Southern Nevada Cohousing are struggling with this issue many of you
> are addressing in the other discussion thread.  But along with this issue
> of involvement by interested but not yet paid members, we would appreciate
> communities sharing information on their initial "buy-in" cost for
> associate/explorer membership, which benefits this does and does not
> confer, the "cost" of full membership (% of unit cost or flat rate) and its
> timing.  Our current $500/2500 rates are driven by the estimated cost of
> moving to the next stage of a concept drawing to take to the target
> property owner and to cover marketing costs.  Unfortunately, after two
> years of working the "free" avenues of marketing, we have learned that we
> must spend real money getting the word out and educating Las Vegans on
> cohousing.  But we worry that our current fee structure is too big a hurdle
> for some who want involvement and may eventually buy-in as we move closer
> to actualization of the project.
> Thank you!
> Michelle Keiserman
> SNV Cohousing LLC
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-- 
-Liz
(The Rev.) Elizabeth M. Magill
Minister to the Affiliates, Ecclesia Ministries
www.ecclesiaministriesmission.org
www.mosaic-commons.org
508-450-0431