Buying, Renting, Selling

As a community, Takoma Village does not rent or sell units. We are legally a condominium and units are rented and sold by individual unit owners. The community expects potential residents to attend a membership meeting and meet with a small group of members to answer questions and discuss community expectations, but there is no membership review or approval of potential owners or renters.

The community does maintain a list of people who are interested in purchasing a unit at Takoma Village and this list generally receives the first notification that a unit is available. There are very, very few rentals. If you are interested in being added to this list, please send an email to Steve Pretl indicating what size unit you might be interested in. There is no charge or obligation for being listed but please do let us know when you are no  longer interested.

Members who are planning to sell or rent often use one or more of the following methods of advertising so these are good ways to find an available unit. There are several cohousing communities in the Washington, DC area not all of whom keep lists of interested people.

Owners wishing to sell or rent often:

• Post flyers at natural food stores, coffee shops, etc. advertising your home.
• Send periodic posts to coho-l. Coho-l is a national email list of people living or interested in cohousing. You need to subscribe before posting which you can do at the Cohousing Association website.
• Place a classified ad on the Cohousing Association website.
• Place a classified ad on the Fellowship for Intentional Communities website.
• Place a classified ad in the Communities Magazine.
• Post a listing on craigslist.

Buying, selling, or renting a home in cohousing is first and foremost about selling the community, and then the home.

As a general rule, real estate agents are not effective in selling homes in cohousing because they are not familiar with the idea of selling community rather than real estate and they are not connected to the cohousing community where people who are interested in cohousing share information.

(The list of ideas for publicizing a unit for rent or sale were adapted from Heartwood Cohousing in Colorado.)