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Because I know some folks on here are knowledgeable about co-ops–me and some friends are researching how to form a housing cooperative. I grew up in a co-op and I'm so disgusted with the capitalist hellscape housing market and gentrification to boot, so I'm trying to live my principles. I have four questions which I'll put below.

1) Does it make sense to create a co-op with fewer than 10 members? It seems a like incorporating is a hefty amount of work, including searching for legal assistance, filing paperwork, writing bylaws, choosing a board, etc. There are a number of resources available in my area to support this but I know it'll still be a lot.

2) The housing market where I live rn is pretty cutthroat. I'm worrying about putting in a lot of effort to work with lenders and secure loans and then just being outbid in a competitive market. Does this happen to co-ops a lot?

3) Most of the co-ops in my region are formed by conversions due to our local tenant laws. Am I being a big ol silly head trying to make a new co-op from scratch? Can you even incorporate without an actual property? I'm not sure how the process is supposed to work.

4) There are nonprofit orgs in my city that can offer loans/money for renovations. Most of the multi family buildings in the area look like crap due to landlords milking poor people for profit, so not many folks are super interested in leaving renting/living with family behind just to live in crappy looking places. But I also know that money is tight and the market is not at all friendly rn. Is it pie in the sky to be thinking about trying to get a loan for renovations? And related to question 3, how would that even work?

Eventually I'm planning on taking this to a lawyer or nonprofit but it all just seems so overwhelming...

#coops #coop