Apply to become a member!
We’re about to begin accepting applications on a rolling basis for several upcoming vacancies.
We’re about a month away [as of mid-June 2026] from opening for applications for 1-3 studio and one-bedroom units in our 22-unit limited-equity housing cooperative just north of Downtown Berkeley BART, with earliest potential move-in dates starting in November 2026. Read more about Walnut House below, and if we sound like a good fit and you’d like to be considered for these openings, please apply!
Important: these units are currently undergoing renovations and we don’t have a clear timeline for when they’ll be available. Because of this, we’re currently only accepting applications for waitlist slots. We’ll review applications as they’re received, with the goal of building a waitlist to fill these units as renovations are completed, as well as any other vacancies that arise over the next couple years. For the time being, we encourage you to click the Past vacancies tab above for pictures of other apartments in the building.
We’ll hold both in-person and virtual open houses in the next several months; additional details will be posted here once they’ve been solidified, and applicants who’ve already submitted an application via email will be notified directly as well.
If you’re accepted for a waitlist slot, we’ll work together to select a move-in date that best accommodates both your current housing obligations and our availability timeline.
Walnut House is a cooperative in the formal sense: we’re a legally incorporated, member-owned business focused on economic benefit and shared equity. As such, when an applicant is accepted for membership, they purchase a “share” of stock in the corporation (the property itself – our land and building – are its primary assets). By way of example, the 2026 cost of a studio apartment (i.e. the member’s share cost) is approximately $16,000. The precise amount depends on the specific apartment a share corresponds to, and this share value is returned along with the interest it’s accrued when a member moves out. Monthly assessments, the limited-equity counterpart of rent, cover the cost of maintaining and managing the building, as well as all utilities except electricity and internet, and run approximately $800/mo for a studio.
All members contribute at least 8 hours per month of labor to govern, manage, and maintain the cooperative and its 1920s Spanish-style building. Founded in 1981, one of the coop’s primary goals was to create affordable housing for residents of low and moderate income. The membership reviews assessments annually, balancing the twin goals of providing well-maintained housing while keeping costs moderate.
This self-management process helps keep expenses low, but takes quite a few volunteer hours. We’re looking for new members who are excited to work collaboratively on this!
Those who have lived in co-ops before will be familiar with the time spent on decision-making that comes with self-governance (there’s no landlord to make unilateral decisions! — but it’s often fulfilling work). Members are elected to serve one- and two-year terms on the board, which meets monthly to handle organizational admin issues, oversee high-level budgetary decisions, etc. Others join the Maintenance Committee and help snake drains, pull permits, project-manage the installation of new flooring, and other things like that. Others manage the bookkeeping, or collect monthly assessments. There are also numerous volunteer jobs for self-starters that don’t quite fall under any committee’s purview, such as pruning the fig tree, or planning occasional social gatherings. Walnut House is a great place for self-starters and the collaboratively-inclined who don’t mind too much if things take a little longer than they would as a solo project. If you’re great at project management, have carpentry or accounting skills, or can charm your neighbors into helping with the occasional dump run, all the better!
While members enjoy privacy in their own apartments, many get to know each other during meetings, on quarterly(ish) workdays, or while collaborating on tasks and projects throughout the year. Members occasionally throw seasonal parties or potlucks, and gather informally in the halls, in one another’s apartments, and in the back room. That said, we’re not a commune, co-housing, or collective; each unit is a self-contained apartment with kitchen and bathroom (and unlike a co-housing community, our building wasn’t designed with shared public space in mind), not all of us are social butterflies, and as with any community we do have conflict. We’re a community made up of people of a variety of backgrounds, ages, occupations, and lifestyles, which comes with myriad joys and difficulties.
Walnut House is a four-story building without an elevator. There is one step at the main front entrance and two in the back (or rather, there will be when our deck is rebuilt in the near future). There are sixteen steps to the 2nd floor, and seventeen more to the 3rd floor. (The 4th floor is a small rooftop penthouse.) The building is not fragrance-free or low-scent. Several members have pets (both cats and dogs) that live in their units. For those curious about unit-specific accessibility information, you can get a general sense from individual unit descriptions (listed under Previous Openings) – but we don’t know yet which units will be available to future members, as current members often switch units internally as vacancies become available.
In accordance with Berkeley Municipal Code 12.70, smoking is not allowed in the building.
If you’re interested in applying for membership at Walnut House, please download and complete the application form. It will be linked here when applications open, likely in late June or early July 2026.
Download an application! (TBA)
But wait! Before applying, read this page top to bottom. For even more details, look at the longer About Us page.
Application details
Completed applications should be emailed to [email protected]. If you’re applying with someone else (a partner, for instance), both applications should be attached to the same email. If you’re including additional documents in order to provide complete information, or if your answers require a little more space, save them as .pdfs and attach them to the same email.
We recommend using Adobe Acrobat Reader to open and fill the application. (It’s available as a free download from Adobe.) For longer answers, we also suggest composing in Google Docs, Word, or another tool that automatically saves your work if something goes wrong!
Incomplete applications will not be considered for membership, and we cannot accept faxed or mailed applications.
We’ll contact you to let you know that your application has been received, and again if you’ve been selected for an interview.
If you’re provisionally approved for membership, you will need to agree to a credit check, an employment/income/finances check, and a reference check — all of which will happen after at least an initial interview. We’ll notify you before contacting your employer or other references. All information and documentation provided by applicants will be kept confidential.
Questions?
Questions about the application and new member selection process? Read this entire page first, our About page, and the entire application. If you still have questions, drop us a note at [email protected]. We’ll do our best to get back to you in a reasonable amount of time, but we’re all member volunteers, so don’t be surprised if it takes a little while.
Examples of previously available units
- #3 – 1st floor studio. Details, floor plan, photos.
- #5 – 1st floor one-bedroom. Details, floor plan, photos.
- #8 – 2nd floor studio. Details, floor plan, photos.
- #9 – 2nd floor studio. Details, floor plan, photos.
- #12 – 2nd floor studio. Details, floor plan, photos.
- #17 – 3rd floor studio. Details, floor plan.
COMING SOON: Want to hear about upcoming vacancies after this application cycle closes? Sign up below!
We typically send out notifications once or twice a year, and we promise not to sell your personal information or send you unsolicited email.