Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Seeking Cohousing Development Consultant

[Sharon Villines (sharon]

> On Jan 18, 2018, at 12:15 PM, Jenny Guy <jenstermeister [at] gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Most consultants will get paid a percentage of the total project cost.

Many who are not familiar with real estate development will look at this 
percentage and think they can do it much cheaper themselves. Unless you are 
already a developer, you can’t. It’s requires a lot of knowledge and 
experience. It requires connections with other developers. Some kinds of 
information, like commercial property listings, are often only publicized to 
professionals. It’s about skills, knowledge of the market, and the connections 
to the people who provide services and information.

A developer should also have a track record that will help you get a 
construction loan.

And last but not least, this percentage represents the developer’s income for 
the whole period of time it takes to plan and build your project, plus the 
incomes of their staff and the services they have to hire to do even more 
specialized work — engineers, zoning expediters, etc. 

Time is money. You don’t want anyone sitting around figuring out how to work 
with zoning or how to evaluate a contractors bid while land prices are 
increasing faster than your own incomes and you are paying interest on loans 
for land acquisition and construction.

Just a reminder,

Sharon
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Sharon Villines
Takoma Village Cohousing, Washington DC
http://www.takomavillage.org