Creating Your Co-Ownership Guidelines: The Power of Communication

Regular communication is key to the success of co-owned real estate arrangements. There are many different tools your group can use to facilitate communication that fits your group’s needs and styles.

Establishing Regular Communication

Scheduled house meetings are a great way to maintain regular communication between group members. However, other methods, or a combination of methods, may work better for your group. These could include a WhatsApp message group, a message board in common spaces, or even a Slack channel. Discuss with your group to determine the best communication method and frequency for everyone.

Collective Decision-Making Models

There are various decision-making models your group can adopt. If you are still uncertain about which model suits your group best, we have included some resources for further reading:

Decision Making Models from MIT: Explore different approaches to decision-making.
Group Decision Making from the University of Waterloo: Learn about effective group decision-making strategies.
Good Ol’ Fashioned Wikipedia: Get a broad overview of decision-making models.

Different Tools for Communication

Here are some tools that might be useful for your group’s communication needs:

Slack: An online platform to facilitate virtual team communication, with both desktop and mobile compatibility. See more.
WhatsApp: A mobile application that allows virtual communication, also desktop compatible. See more.
Facebook Messenger: An extension of Facebook, requiring an account to use, with mobile and desktop compatibility. See more.

Drafting Your Co-Ownership Guidelines

Building on the mission statement you outlined in Identifying Your Shared Goals, and your group needs identified in Step 1: Finding Your Group, begin drafting your Co-Ownership Guidelines by discussing the following questions and recording your answers as a group. Also, consider your reflections in Group Strengths and Competencies and what roles you each might fulfill in your group arrangement.

Now that you’ve established effective communication methods, you're ready to move forward with drafting your Co-Ownership Guidelines. Open, regular communication is the foundation of a successful co-ownership journey.