The CoHousing Company

Cohousing has matured in many respects since it immigrated to the U.S., but none so much as the development structures or the financial savvy of cohousers themselves. Since future residents expect to be involved in the design of the future neighborhood, the instruments for conventionally financed development don’t always work in the same way. Consequently, in the process of learning about real estate development and financing, cohousers are reinventing them.

In March 1999, after only three months of meetings, a group of five families opened escrow on Temescal Creek Cohousing, a "retrofit" cohousing neighborhood in Oakland, CA. They're called a retrofit community because they transformed an existing neighborhood into a cohousing community, rather than building from the ground up.