Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Rental Policy

[Sharon Villines (sharon]

> On Apr 20, 2023, at 8:20 PM, Joel Bartlett <altairecovillage [at] gmail.com> 
> wrote:
> 
> We at Altair are trying to finalize our rental policy.  Still a
> forming community, but we need to be clear to folks who are thinking of
> investing, but not living there themselves and wanting to rent out their
> home.

Is there any way to have a rent-to-own plan? The problem is that you would have 
an owner who has never lived there who will have equal say with owners who are 
part of the community.

it’s a bit like Zuckerberg having to produce income for his investors whether 
he likes it or not. They just want more money. To hell with the utopian ethos 
of the Internet that existed when Facebook started. He has pressure from people 
who probably care nothing about Facebook.

Right now it is all idealism and thankfulness to have buyers for units, but 
that is unlikely to last when prices start rising, or falling.

If an investor is financing a unit that another person would own at a certain 
point, it makes the ego interest less cloudy. With a good rent-to-own contract, 
the worst that can happen is that the investor gets the unit back if the renter 
defaults.

It gets weird when you don’t know who you are dealing with. If you are using 
consensus that person out there is in control of your decisions. You won’t be 
able to do anything that they object to.

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