Ok, this is of interest to @Hannah and @reef-recruitment.
How much should a new member, joining The Reef in early 2025, pay in the first year?
1. Before construction starts
First, and to clarify: what follows refers to the period between now and the start of the construction. This is the period where an incomplete group needs to front the purchase of the site, plus building design, plus permit, plus the appel d’offre and the choice of the construction company.
We agreed on a principle of equalizing the contributions. New members should, in other words, pay as much as the early movers. Their risk is already reduced, since they enter in a larger, more solid and far more committed group than we did. So it would work like this:
- The existing group will, by then, have fronted all of the finance needed to get through 2024.
- We predict a maximum disbursement before construction starts of 556,800. This includes 45% of the architect’s fees (as per the contract); and a conservative hypothesis of 100% of the other technical service fees.
- In late 2024, we will also create a new, and final, division key that we will use from then on. Our contributions will thus be recalculated as a function of the prices of our units instead of their surface.
- Entrant members will be asked to pay into Coral Reef a contribution against the costs of 2024 and the first part of 2025 roughly equal to the average share of the prices of our units already paid by the early movers. For example, if we paid 20% of the price of our units, and the new entrant has chosen a unit with the value of 200K EUR, they will need to pay 40K EUR.
- This system will be used until Coral Reef has built a base of capital equal to its financial needs for the entire period preceding the start of the construction. This is estimated (conservatively) at 1,775,250 EUR. This should be covered with the first 5-6 units allocated. After we reach this goal, we will start to use the capital brought in by new members to refund people who have fronted the first expenses, so the contribution will decline: instead of 20%, 19% of the price of the new member’s unit, then 18% and so on.
2. After construction has started
Construction will start at the earliest in Q4 2025. By then the group will be complete, and everyone will have contributed to the previous phases in proportion to the division key. At this point, we will simply receive invoices from the construction company, and pay them according to the same division key. We will also have complete clarity on the timeline of payments, which depends critically on how large an advance we pay to the construction company: even 10% of 5,800,000 is a lot of money.
3. So, what can we say to a new member considering joining?
Before we have shifted to the new division key, we can tell them: you need to pay 2K EUR to join the ASBL, and something like 1,000/1,200 EUR per m2 you want, depending mostly on the unit (and then explain the units will be priced differently). This is already useful to give them a rough idea.
After we have shifted to the new division key we can be a lot more precise, and tell them: you need to pay X% of the price of the unit you choose.
Is this reasonable?