Bay Area startup offers $800-a-month bunk bed ‘pods’ in shared home
For $800 a thirty day period you could reside in a tiny bunk mattress-type pod with 13 other roommates in the Bay Region.
8-month-aged startup Brownstone Shared Housing has occur under the highlight this week right after an Insider profile on the corporation discovered what it seems like inside of the Palo Alto residence with 14 tenants every single living in a “pod.”
Although the $800-a-thirty day period lease may possibly appear to be steep for a stacked bunk mattress pod, the average rental level for a studio condominium around Stanford University, in which the pod-dwelling sits, is currently close to $2,400.
Co-founder Christina Lennox has lived in a pod herself for the past calendar year. “The wood sort of allows for peace, instead than like going inside of of this futuristic-wanting plastic object,” Lennox informed Insider. “It has, like, absolutely a various sense — I would say that it’s more calming and soothing for men and women.”
Blackout curtains are supplied at the conclude of each pod for privacy.
Brownstone Shared HousingThe small housing was greatly shared and critiqued on Reddit final 7 days, with one particular heavily upvoted remark in the r/Antiwork subreddit stating: “This utilized to be a main criticism of the abuses in the housing crisis in China. Now it is currently being lauded as excellent right here in the US?”
“We prepare to open far more residences in the Bay Location in the close to potential,” CEO James Stallworth instructed SFGATE above e-mail. “There’s a great deal of need for housing in the Bay Place, and we have had a whole lot of interested residents and landlords achieve out to us.”
At time of publication, one of the 14 pods was vacant in the Palo Alto dwelling, which would ordinarily residence a single family in a a few-bedroom room.
The relaxation of the property has two bogs, a kitchen area and communal place.
Brownstone Shared HousingIn accordance to at 2021 report on the housing disaster in the Bay Location, the region would have to have 160,000 new homes to house its poorest residents. There are at this time only 35 inexpensive units out there for each and every 100 extremely lower-income homes, the report identified.
The pods offered by Brownstone are stacked two substantial, and arrive with a built-in fan, light-weight and electrical outlet. Blackout curtains are supplied for privacy. Stallworth explained to CBS News the company aims to “protect humanity and comfort and ease and privacy” for its occupants.
He claimed that the present-day occupants at the Palo Alto residence are interns and momentary workers in their 20s and 30s, adding that at the start off of the enterprise there had been some character clashes.
“Our adaptable month-to-thirty day period leases give you the independence you ought to have,” the blurb on their internet site reads, “zero security deposit and utilities bundled give your wallet a little respiration space” — compared with your new residing room.
