What joining costs

This is the page people act on, so it is the page where inventing a plausible number would do the most damage. We have therefore written it the other way round: the structure of the cost in full, every figure we cite attributed to a source you can go and read, and an explicit list of what we could not find out.

The three numbers

Entry. What you hand over to move in. In cohousing and most co-operative forms this is the price of a home, and it is a normal local property price, because you are competing with everyone else in that town for a building. In an income-sharing commune Commune A community that shares income and usually property, so membership means economic interdependence rather than proximity. it is often nothing at all.

Monthly. Dues, service charge, association fee — the same thing under four names. It covers what the community owns in common: insurance, the shared heating, the roof of the common house, the reserve for the roof of the common house in fifteen years.

Exit. What returns to you when you go. This is set entirely by the legal form, it is written down before you arrive, and it is the number that decides whether the years you spent there cost you a little or a great deal.

If you only take one habit from this lesson: ask the exit question first. It is the fastest way to find out whether a community understands its own agreements Agreements The written rules a community has consented to. Distinct from values: agreements say what happens, and what follows when it does not..

What entry buys, by form

The word “joining fee” is misleading, because in most forms you are not paying a fee — you are buying an asset, and the question is which asset.

In cohousing Cohousing Private self-contained homes clustered around shared facilities — usually a common house — with residents managing the whole. you usually buy the home outright, and the shared facilities come with it. Cohousing homes are priced against comparable homes nearby on a cost-per-square-metre basis, which is why they sit at ordinary market rates: the common house is paid for by every household having built slightly less private space.

In a housing co-operative Housing co-operative Members collectively own the entity that owns the building, and hold a right to occupy rather than a deed to a flat. you buy a share in the organisation that owns the building, plus a right to occupy your home. The share can cost a great deal or very little depending on whether the co-op is market-equity or limited-equity — and that distinction, not the size of the flat, is what determines what you walk away with.

Under a community land trust Community land trust A non-profit holds land permanently and leases it to residents who own their buildings, separating the two so homes stay affordable after the first sale. you buy the building and lease the ground beneath it. Entry is lower than the open-market price precisely because you are not buying the land. That discount is the whole mechanism, and it is paid for at the other end.

In a commune, entry is typically nothing, and so is your stake. You are joining an economy, not buying into one.

Some communities also charge a small membership or application fee, and many require a trial period — often six months to two years — during which you are contributing labour and usually paying to live there. That is a real cost, and it is not on any price list.

The monthly number, and why nobody can quote you one

The best data we have found on ongoing costs is a study by the Cohousing Association of the United States with the Cohousing Research Network, which collected annual budgets from 20 communities comprising 611 units and published the analysis in its newsletter.

What it shows about where the money goes is genuinely useful:

The line worth staring at is the second one. Roughly a third of what you pay each month is not for this year at all — it is the reserve, saved against the roof, the boiler and the resurfacing. A community whose dues look enviably low is often one that is not saving, and the bill arrives later as a special levy that nobody budgeted for.

What the same study will not give you is a headline figure. Across those 20 communities, the portion of annual dues going to self-performed admin and maintenance alone ranged from $50 to $2,890 per average unit; the portion going to trade and professional contracts ranged from $80 to $2,950. Those are two categories out of four, and they already span two orders of magnitude.

That spread is the finding. There is no average monthly cost for community living, any more than there is an average rent.

The exit number

Four models cover almost everything, and a community will tell you which one it uses in a single sentence if it has its house in order.

You own it and may sell at market. Freehold homes, and most cohousing. You get what the home is then worth, less the cost of selling. There may still be a condition attached — some communities require that the buyer go through the membership process first, which can slow a sale considerably.

A community land trust, on an improvements-only formula. You keep an agreed share of the appreciation of the building; the rest stays with the trust so the next household can afford it. Grounded Solutions Network’s technical manual describes the typical share as about 25% of the appreciated value of the improvements — not the land — and notes that some trusts set it higher, and some scale it with tenure, giving as an example a share rising from 5% after one year to 30% after thirty.

Your share back at its original value. Many limited-equity co-operatives return exactly what you put in, with no uplift. Ask whether it is even index-linked; frequently it is not, which means inflation quietly takes a share.

Nothing returns. You were renting, or you were a member of an income-sharing community. Any assets you arrived with remain yours — but the years generated no equity, and that is the trade you accepted.

None of these is unfair. They are different bargains, and the CLT and limited-equity models exist precisely to keep the home affordable for whoever comes next. What is unfair is finding out at the point of leaving.

What the years cost you

Three numbers decide whether an offer is affordable: what you pay to get in, what you pay every month, and what comes back when you leave. The third is the one nobody asks about, and it is the one that changes the answer most.

What comes back, by model

You own it and may sell at market

You get whatever the home is then worth, less the cost of selling. Freehold homes, and most cohousing. Structural — ordinary property law.

Community land trust, improvements-only formula

You bought the building, not the ground under it, and you keep only an agreed share of the building’s appreciation. The rest stays with the trust so the next household can afford the home. Grounded Solutions Network puts the typical share at about 25%, with some trusts scaling it from 5% after one year to 30% after thirty.

Your share is returned at its original value

You paid for a share in the organisation and you get that same sum back, with no uplift. Common in limited-equity housing co-operatives. Structural — set by the co-operative’s own rules. Ask to read them.

Nothing returns

You were renting, or you were a member of an income-sharing community and held no stake in it. Any assets you arrived with are still yours. Structural. Twin Oaks, for instance, freezes members’ existing assets rather than absorbing them.

The interactive version of this works out what the years cost you from your own numbers. There is also a spreadsheet with the same arithmetic in the guide downloads, which works offline and lets you keep the figures a community gives you.

The costs that are not on the price list

The trial period. Six months to two years of contributing before you are a member, usually while paying to be there.

The move itself. Communities are often somewhere other than where your job is. Factor a possible change of work, or a commute, and in some cases a year at lower earnings.

Unpaid labour. Two to six hours a week of work for the place is normal, and it is real value you are contributing. It is not a hidden fee — it is a large part of why the dues are what they are — but it is time you cannot sell to anyone else.

Special levies. See the reserve fund above. Ask when the community last raised one, and what for.

The lawyer. Read the lease, the ground lease or the share agreement with someone who does this for a living. It is the cheapest line in this entire lesson and the one most often skipped.

What to ask on a visit

Sources & further reading

1. 1 Cohousing Costs After You Move In — Cohousing Now! (Coho/US) — the 20-community, 611-unit budget analysis, and the dues ranges quoted above
2. 2 Resale Formula Design — Grounded Solutions Network (2011) — chapter 12 of the CLT Technical Manual; the source of the 25% and 5–30% figures
3. 3 Twin Oaks Community — FAQs — the labour quota, the allowance and the asset-freezing rule, from the community itself
4. 4 National CoHousing Alliance — successor to Coho/US; community listings, and homes currently for sale
5. 5 Foundation for Intentional Community — directory listings, many of which state entry costs and monthly charges directly

Written by EcoHubs members, with AI assistance for drafting and editing, and reviewed by a person before publication. Facts are checked against the sources listed; anything we could not verify is marked. How this is written