This is a draft! Some links are not yet active...many are still to come...

Other housing collectives...
...in the East Bay

• Oakland Ecovillage
• The University Students' Cooperative Association (USCA) in Berkeley
• Halcyon Commons in Berkeley
• Mothers Nine in Oakland
• Hillegass House in Berkeley
• The Playground in Berkeley
• Twin Palms in Fruitvale
• Fairview in Berkeley

...in San Francisco

• Purple Rose. I haven't found a website for them but there's a little info on them here.

...and Beyond

• MCC (Madison Community Cooperatives) in Madison, WI. A great model for a multi-property community co-op system (and really helpful!).
• Solar Community Housing Association in Davis, CA. Similar to MCC but smaller, with a family housing property and lots of ecological inspiration.
• Millstone Co-op, our "sister co-op" starting up in Somerville, MA.
• Pika Co-op at MIT. They house MIT students but are actually independently owned by their alumni (which gave us the idea).

Supportive Organizations for Housing Co-ops

• NASCO, the North American Students of Cooperation (Ann Arbor, MI and Berkeley, CA). Particularly key and worth its own link is their Co-op Organizer's Handbook.
• The Fellowship of Intentional Communities
• The Shared Living Resource Center (Berkeley, CA).
• The UC Davis Center for Co-ops (Davis, CA). These guys actually work with all kinds of co-ops, not just housing. They have a great publication, the Cooperative Housing Compendium, although a few facts in it bear doublechecking.

Supportive Organizations for Affordable Housing (usually having a low-income requirement)

• Northern California Land Trust. No web page but here is their contact info.
• Affordable Housing Associates, Berkeley CA, 510-649-8500
• Resources for Community Development, Berkeley CA, 510-841-4410

Ecological Living...

• Campus Center for Appropriate Technology at Humboldt State. Plus an article about them from the L.A. Times (13 Feb 01).
• Center for Regenerative Studies at Cal Poly.
• Ecovillage Network. Especially check out their resources link!

...and Social Justice

• Want to turn your co-op into a fertile ground for community activism? Check out some ideas from Co-ops as a Social Movement, a workshop from the Fall 2000 NASCO Institute.

So you're looking to buy a house? Bless you. Set aside a lot of time. But maybe we can save you some time by getting you started here:

Buying a House - General Logistics

• Here is one general page about mortgages created by banksite.com. I'm sure there are more.
• A glossary of mortgage-related terms. Kinda weak, though.
• Geographical location: A handy map of Berkeley/Oakland zip codes.

Buying a House - Finances

• A list of all the banks, brokers and lending institutions we contacted. And their responses.
• Places that will give you mortgage quotes online include eloan and interest.com and getsmartinc.com but there's nothing particularly special about these sites.
• Hugh's Mortgage Calculator Page. Also eloan's mortgage calculators.
• Something called the Uniform Commercial Code which someone advised us to look into, but we're not sure yet how it exactly applies to us.
• 201k mortgage stuff (a kind of loan that covers purchase price and major repairs).

Buying a House - Taxes

• State Franchise Tax:
  California has changed its laws so that new corporations don't have to pay franchise tax for the first year! What a great business-friendly state we live in. I got this information from this Nolo Press page. And here's the general corporations page of the California Franchise Tax Board (FTB).
• State/County/City Property Tax:
  Alameda County Property Value and Tax Information page. The base rate for property taxes is 1.23% but lots of stuff gets added on, some of which is specific to the actual property. This page lets you find out the tax rate for any property in Alameda County (and what the current owner paid for it...)
• Federal Income Tax:
  Non-exempt corporations file Form 1120. Many downloading/viewing options of many variations on this form can be obtained by going to the IRS file search page and entering 1120. Here are the instructions for 1120 in html or pdf format. In particular you might want to check out form 1120H for homeowners associations which allows the deduction of income related to owning property (when the income comes from owner-tenants). The general publication concerning corporations (easier to read than instructions) is Publication 542.
• City Transfer Tax:
  Berkeley Transfer Tax Ordinance. Oakland Transfer Tax Ordinance. Also, here is the Section 708 IRS code which is referred to by Exception E of the Berkeley ordinance and Exception H of the Oakland ordinance, which we might try to use.
• Personal Income Tax Deductions:
  Section 216 of the IRS code which defines "cooperative housing corporation" and indicates when stockholders can take deductions for property tax and interest payments.

Buying a House - Legal

• A somewhat rough comparison of legal structures put together by Greg and Dan.
• Nolo Press, publisher of self-help law books, such as "How to Buy a House in California" and "How to Form a Nonprofit Corporation."
• Lawyer's Alliance of New York. Legal assistance for nonprofits. They have a good publications page, e.g. "Getting Organized" for starting up 501(c)3's.
• Year 2000 HUD data on median income by county (click on your state). This defines what is considered low-income status for your area, e.g. for 501(c)3 requirements. Click on the state you're interested in.
• The IRS page on tax-exempt (501(c)3) organizations.
• The California Corporations Code. The code covering Nonprofit Mutual Benefit Corporations starts with section 7110.
• The California Business Portal for Corporations. This page gives some info about corporations, like filing fees, but there's a lot missing. They tell you how to check name availability for a fee, but you can do it yourself by clicking on "California Business Search." Also here's their definition of the three kinds of California Nonprofit Corporations (public benefit, mutual benefit and religious) with good tax code links.
• A complete? list of Oakland city ordinances relevant to property owners.

• Oakland definition of "family" can be found in the Municipal Code Planning Definitions.