Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Limited Equity models?

[Bloom! A WeBUILT Community (bloom.awebuiltcommunity]

Thanks for your input. Do you have any provision if the housing market were to 
go down? It doesn’t always appreciate every year.

On Apr 18, 2026, at 6:06 am, Laurie Frank via Cohousing-L <cohousing-l [at] 
cohousing.org> wrote:

Hi Elissa,

We have a similar situation to Berkeley Cohousing at Linden Cohousing (Madison, 
WI).  11 of our units have a Land Use Restriction Agreement (LURA) tied to City 
subsidy for down payment assistance. It’s a deed restriction that limits equity 
to 2% per year. To qualify, buyers have to be at 80% of median area income.

The one difference from the Berkeley model, it seems, is that we have no 
endpoint to the deed restriction. Not sure how we got that past the lawyers 😉.

The other side to this is that the property taxes for the 11 units grow more 
slowly, based on the value of the property.

Please let us all know how it all works out for you.

Best,

Laurie Frank
Linden Cohousing




Sent from my iPhone

> On Apr 18, 2026, at 8:22 AM, Raines Cohen <rc3-coho-L [at] raines.com> wrote:
> 
> Congratulations and welcome to the community of cohousing communities,
> Elissa. You've got an inspirational community vision, in a great place
> (West side of Portland, OR) with lots of long-established communities; I'm
> glad to hear it is well underway, and asking this sort of question is a
> "good problem to have." For folks who want to learn more about your
> community, I see that they can go to:
> https://www.bloomawebuiltcommunityllc.org/
> 
> My home community, Berkeley Cohousing, as Kavana mentions, is a rare breed,
> a "limited-equity Condominium," rather than the "limited-equity (housing)
> coop" (LEHC) form sometimes used in partnership with Community Land Trusts
> (CLTs). I know of one other community that uses our model, albeit in
> partnership with a CLT: Mariposa Grove Cohousing in Oakland. In both, 100%
> of the homes are at below-market prices, not just a small "inclusionary"
> portion. By being a condominium, buyers qualify for competitive mortgage
> rates from a variety of banks, rather than being limited to a small pool of
> lenders and higher rates and poorer terms.
> 
> In our deed restrictions with the city, which we negotiated (and legalized)
> as an alternative to condo-conversion fees for taking eight rent-controlled
> homes off the market as we were self-developing, we indexed prices to Area
> Median Income (AMI). Our intent was to have permanent affordability, like
> CLTs provide through 99-year ground leases and taking the property value
> out of the equation. However, attorneys don't like "perpetuities," and so
> the arrangement was set to run for 30 years from our first sale, which is
> nearly up (some of us are in discussions with CLTs and similar groups to
> find ways to extend affordability, although it will be home-by-home rather
> than for the full community).
> 
> We get to index both the purchase price and individual plus our share of
> collective improvements through the AMI difference from the year of
> purchase or improvement, and we have invested a fair amount over time, both
> in upgrades when elements need replacement, and doing things we couldn't
> afford initially. Some of the homes have "expansion areas," pre-approved
> envelopes (in the architectural sense of the term) where we can build up
> and out with an expedited approval process.
> 
> Plus, area AMIs have climbed rapidly in recent years, as our metro area
> includes commuters to San Francisco and Silicon Valley, and the high market
> prices for homes for rent or sale and state-mandated vacancy decontrol when
> rental homes turn over, even in rent-controlled cities, plus high land and
> construction costs for new developments, has meant that only people with
> higher incomes can move in, further driving up AMI, and therefore our price
> caps when (rare) resales happen.
> 
> Perhaps you could say more about why CPI wouldn't work for you, that could
> help folks make more useful suggestions as to alternative
> approaches/indexes. You might also look at building in funds and transfer
> fees that contribute to affordability for new buyers, so that resources are
> available to cover costs that grow over time, to preserve affordability.
> 
> You're likely to get the most relevant answers from CLTs that are engaging
> this issue all the time, and have found different solutions in different
> jurisdictions. The national Community Land Trust network is part of
> Grounded Solutions, and they (as well as networks in OR) might have some
> good examples for you:
> https://groundedsolutions.org
> 
> Raines
> 
> PS My wife Betsy Morris and I will be spending two nights in Portland on
> our train journey to the Cohousing Summit in Seattle next month, perhaps we
> could meet with your group and learn more about it and share some of what
> we've learned from living in two communities and visiting 137 US cohousing
> neighborhoods, as well as some neurodiverse communities like Camp Hill
> communities and Solheimar in Iceland. If anyone from your group can make it
> to the Summit and related tours, I'd highly recommend participation, to
> meet more folks and get more questions answered. If you do come up by
> Friday evening (recommended to avoid a long Saturday-early commute), I'll
> be co-hosting a pre-Summit reception on Capitol Hill that evening, and
> you'd be most welcome there. Summit info:
> https://www.cohousing.org/seattle2026/
> 
>> On Fri, Apr 17, 2026 at 12:48 PM Kavana Tree Bressen <
>> kavana [at] effectivecollective.net> wrote:
>> 
>> Hi Elissa,
>> 
>> I have experience with this, and would be happy to talk with you
>> further.  I helped start a small limited equity co-op here that's still
>> going (one house with 9 bedrooms), and more recently was employed by a
>> local nonprofit launching a large affordable housing LEC project (70
>> units).  While neither of those were on a cohousing model, i've also
>> worked with dozens of cohousing groups on governance and group process.
>> Althought some LEC projects are tied to scales such as CPI, others set
>> their own interest rate internally--the model is reasonably flexible,
>> which allows projects to choose which option best meets their needs.
>> The only cohousing project i can think of offhand that uses the LEC
>> structure is Berkeley Cohousing; their model ties resale prices to AMI
>> (Area Median Income).  Raines who's on this list lives there and i
>> imagine he'll repy too.
>> 
>> I see your area code is 503, are you located in Portland/Oregon? I'm in
>> Eugene (aka Chanchifin), and recently attended a meeting of many
>> different reps interested in seeing more co-ops happen, convened by
>> Portland city government.  So if you're in this geographic area, i can
>> probably help connect you with local resources.  I'd be happy to talk
>> further off-list.
>> 
>> Cheers,
>> 
>> --Kavana
>> 
>>> On 4/16/2026 10:12 AM, Bloom! A WeBUILT Community via Cohousing-L wrote:
>>> Hi everyone - I’ve been a member of cohousing for a year but just joined
>> this list.  We are building a community of 18 units for adults with I/DD
>> disabilities.  We want to use a limited equity model for resale purposes in
>> order to keep the community affordable and sustainable and at the same time
>> allow our owners to gain some appreciation in value over time.
>>> 
>>> I have been searching high and low for a model/index/anything used by
>> others to do that.  So far no one has one and only suggests using something
>> like CPI - which will not work.  Anyone use this model and are willing to
>> share?
>>> 
>>> Thanks so much.
>>> 
>>> 
>>> Elissa M. Ryan Morris, Manager
>>> Bloom! A WeBUILT Community, LLC
>>> 503-319-9078
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> _________________________________________________________________
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>>> 
>>> 
>> 
>> --
>> ---------------------------------------------------------------
>> Kavana Tree Bressen
>> 
>> Email checked weekdays only
>> Website:  www.effectivecollective.net
>> Group Works deck:  www.groupworksdeck.org
>> Phone: 541-343-3855 (landline)
>> 
>> 
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>> 
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