Co-Buying, Co-Living, and Co-Housing
Resources and Expertise for Finding Properties, Creating Contracts, and Building Community
Co-Buying
Co-Buying is a term that refers to the action of two or more parties purchasing legal property together. Co-buyers are often friends or family, but can include business or property investors, community land trusts, or government partnerships such as a first-time homebuyer down payment program. Co-buyers often use Tenant in Common agreements, Joint Survivorship, or LLC agreements to form specific accords regarding ownership shares, maintenance, arbitration and exit plans.
Co-Living
Co-living is little more than living with a roommate or sharing housing in some form or another. Renting a room, sharing a house with friends, a homestay or boarding; this model can take many forms and is a general common model many of us experience at some point in our lives. If you are interested in this model, we have access to resources to help clients drill down into the agreements and house rules that can be the difference between a successful and challenging co-living scenario.
Cooperative
Cooperatives ownership is different from standard fee simple ownership found in Condominiums. Cooperatives are corporations that are jointly owned by their member/shareholders. The shareholder is given an occupancy certificate and a lease or occupancy agreement based on the number of shares a member owns which correlates with the square footage size of their unit.
Cooperatives have by-laws and homeowner boards and are not often financed by traditional banks. Some Cooperative’s put restrictions on the buying and selling of the units such as owner occupancy rates and Homeowner board approval of incoming buyers. Cooperatives ownership also allows its member/shareholders to vote other members to sell under certain circumstances.
Co-Housing
Co-housing is an intentional community of privately owned homes clustered around shared common property. Each attached or single-family home has traditional amenities, including a private kitchen, bedrooms, and living space. Shared common spaces typically feature outbuildings such as a common house, kitchen, laundry, storage and recreational spaces. Shared outdoor space may include parking, walkways, open space, and gardens.
Neighbors also share resources like tools and lawnmowers. Most Co-housing communities use consensus decision-making and share meals as a community on a regular basis.
Collective
A Collective is often defined as a group that comes together or is bound by certain shared values or purpose. The purposes may vary widely from one collective to the next. Artist’s collectives are common, musicians, visual artists, and theater groups. Some Collectives have developed ownership models for its members or were developed with the intent to give ownership opportunities to the community.
Intentional Living
An Intentional Community is a group of people who live together or share common facilities and who regularly associate with each other based on explicit common values. The members may unite around a common political, social, religious, spiritual vision or alternative lifestyle. Responsibilities and resources are often shared and or cooperative. Common intentional community models include but are not limited to Co-housing communities, Collectives, Co-Living, Eco-villages, Communes, Monasteries, Ashrams, Convents, Kibbutz’ etc.