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Austin Startup Sees a Big Future for Little Homes

119 points by alexjray 11y ago

fasteo 11y ago
"Kasitas" is slang for "Casita", which means "little home" in Spanish
baltcode 11y ago
This is where I'd like to see more innovation. The kind of stuff that takes most of the time and money for most people. Housing, cleaning, food storage, plumbing, transport, security. How come cars, homes, wholesome dinners, home repair, car repair costs more or about the same as 20-30 years ago. We have more and more materials to work with, efficiencies of industrial processes and machines has improved and more stuff is automated. How come the little guy/gal is not getting any of it other than the internet? In many part of, say the Rust Belt, or many innner cities there are tons of abandoned buildings and houses. If only the repairs and maintenance costs decreased, a lot of people could use them.
- alexjray 11y ago
  Completely agree baltcode, as amazing as teslas and iphones are homes are the center point for everything else. There is a huge housing crisis and it effects much more of the economy, environment and community than most people realize and I can't help but feel like there is much more innovation to be had on this front!
  - mathgeek 11y ago
    The problem you run into is that housing (the land, really) is both a useful object and a rather solid investment. It's that dual functionality that makes it a different problem from disposable objects (iPhones and cars, as examples). Very few cars or phones are purchased as investments directly (meaning you see the value appreciate). Housing is almost exclusively an investment, both for finances (whether collecting rent or being able to leverage the value down the road) and for the land it sits on. A world where most housing becomes disposable (i.e. it is not directly tied to the land it sits on) would be very different from the one we currently live in.
    - baltcode 11y ago
      True, though I'd like to understand it on deeper level. For example, how much of a house or condo price due to the land and how much of it construction, maintenance, taxes? In any case, at least for building straight up, there is scope for improvement even with the land remaining a bottleneck.
      - ghaff 11y ago
        It varies enormously although there tends to be some correlation between the size and cost level of the house and the price of the land it's on. Someone's probably not going to buy a million dollar parcel of land and put a shack on it (even if they were allowed to by zoning--which they probably wouldn't be). The general rule of thumb is $100-200 a square foot for houses so a fairly typical 2,000 square foot house is going to probably cost in the neighborhood of $300K to build. That assumes the land has water, electricity, sewer/septic, etc. So for fairly typical exurb/suburban locations (i.e. not Bay area, Manhattan, or back of beyond), the house and the land are probably roughly the same value.
    - derekp7 11y ago
      "A world where most housing becomes disposable (i.e. it is not directly tied to the land it sits on) would be very different from the one we currently live in." So basically the trailer park model?
      - mathgeek 11y ago
        That's what I envision, but I like to be optimistic that it wouldn't be that bad.
        derekp7 11y ago
        One variation is the campground model. I have a camper parked at a fairly decent campground, costs are about 2.5K a year (plus electricity and waste disposal). But where I live the camping season is about 5 months. However, it doesn't have the feel of a trailer park -- instead if feels like a resort area.
- ghaff 11y ago
  >How come cars, homes, wholesome dinners, home repair, car repair costs more or about the same as 20-30 years ago Cars primarily because cars today have a lot more "stuff" in them--in many cases, safety related. Although I'm not sure given improved reliability that the $/mile cost isn't less I wouldn't be surprised if the cost of some fresh food has dropped but it's probably not a lot cheaper across the board. Mechanized farming has been around for a long time. Home and car repair are largely a function of labor. There's relatively little benefit in either case to improved industrial processes. The process of building a house hasn't changed much and manufactured housing has never really taken off for a variety of reasons.
- OliverJones 11y ago
  Yes. In urban areas housing is, almost by definition, not affordable any more. Yet there's still a cultural stigma coming from living in mass-produced housing like trailer parks or high-rise projects like the late unlamented Robert Taylor Homes in Chicago. Just because le Corbusier's brutalist mid-20th-century vision gave urban manufactured housing a multigenerational bad name doesn't mean the whole project is stupid. I wonder if Habitat for Humanity or some other experienced org with an ethical core could have something to add to this project.
epenn 11y ago
Please be safe to live in... then please, please, please build these in Boston.
- jhallenworld 11y ago
  Maybe something like it will happen.. https://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2015/04/05/boston-housing-should-more-like-legos/VhlYKBOFEFsoKVBlywX8dL/story.html https://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2015/04/05/boston-housin...
- mmcwilliams 11y ago
  They've been building micro units in Boston for a while now, but the results are less than impressive: http://realestate.boston.com/news/2014/11/26/micro-units-pop-up-in-boston-fetch-high-prices/ http://realestate.boston.com/news/2014/11/26/micro-units-pop... $2,000/mo for 420sqft
  - ghaff 11y ago
    Although I don't have the figures, I suspect that by the time you factor in all the infrastructure for a unit (elevators, common areas, hallways, parking (?), etc.) you don't really cut out all that much cost by reducing units by a few hundred square feet. Seaport rents are particularly extreme for reasons that I confess I don't fully understand but you definitely get into diminishing returns as you decrease apartment size.
dpflan 11y ago
It's important to note that this is not a one-time $600 apparently. It's more like, find a developer who has created a rack, and pay to rent a space in that rack and plug in your home and continuing paying for space in that rack. I guess moving is a lot easier - just find a rack in another location. "The idea is to have developers purchase racks and individuals purchase Kasitas that fit into them. The developers would make money with homeowner association fees. And homeowners would own their Kasita, paying about $600 a month -- or about half of an equivalent studio in central Austin." [from linked source] But I'm still even confused by this wording and the $600 tag - is it just cheaper rent in another form and a different ownership model?
- alexjray 11y ago
  dpflan, I am a bit confused about the price as well, the exact cost of owning one of these seems to something that is still under development. Im sure this is something that will fluctuate between cities and demand. From reading a couple articles on this the only consistent thing I've heard is that they are shooting for a price that is well below $1,600.
  - dpflan 11y ago
    Thanks for digging deeper. Would you mind posting any references?
    - alexjray 11y ago
      It actually says it right on the website ^1"Through partnerships with local entities, Kasita will rent units at about half the market rate of a studio apartment." heres is also a nice counter agrument to Kasita. [1] https://kasita.com/kasita/ https://kasita.com/kasita/ [2] http://www.citylab.com/housing/2015/12/micro-modular-apartments-wont-work/420960/ http://www.citylab.com/housing/2015/12/micro-modular-apartme...
- triangleman 11y ago
  The title needs to be changed to "$600 per month micro homes"
cphuntington97 11y ago
Une maison est une machine-à-habiter.
- Isamu 11y ago
  Le Corbusier! I guessed right. Now I have to admit I don't really know what he meant by this.
  - cphuntington97 11y ago
    Pick any modern automobile, and you can drive to your destination with ease. Each car maximizes some manner of cost, comfort, materials, efficiency, and safety. Compare a modern car with a 100 year old vehicle, and you will find innovation in absolutely every area. A machine for moving people. You don't need to bring anything with you. You don't need to bring your own chair to sit in, for example - the car already has that. Now, pick any modern house. You will find almost no innovation compared to a house that is 100 years old. You'll need to bring your own chair, since the house just has empty rooms. Think of all the things you need to do in order to live. Shouldn't the architect of the house take all of these activities into consideration? Le Corbusier uses such examples as -- shouldn't there be a place to store artwork, so that there is always something different on the wall? Shouldn't there be recessed lighting, so there is no dusty chandelier to clean? Shouldn't there be as much natural light as possible, to avoid the need for artificial light in the first place? Shouldn't the house be a machine for living, just as the car is a machine for driving? Where style is not bolted on, but rather the formal outcome of functionality? Another phrase he uses that I really like, "the answer to a question well posed," or, "the solution to a problem well posed." But anyway, I'm rambling. Read "Toward An Architecture." Any book that gets a new translation at almost 100 years old is probably worth a gander.
deleted 11y ago
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eastbayjake 11y ago
If Oakland city leaders were more proactive, they might use their 90 day rent hike / eviction moratorium[1] to recruit modular builders and create zoning exceptions for this type of housing. $600/month would be a lifesaver as median rent in Oakland hits $2950 for a two-bedroom. (It would also probably be a cheaper way for SF to house the homeless than acquiring or building new SROs.) [1] http://sf.curbed.com/2016/4/5/11365144/oakland-rent-eviction-moratorium-city-council http://sf.curbed.com/2016/4/5/11365144/oakland-rent-eviction...
- pessimizer 11y ago
  The rent isn't engineered into the building.
geogra4 11y ago
The problem isn't that there aren't enough homes, or that we don't know how to build cheap homes. It's simply that desirable land is so incredibly expensive. Unless these homes can be stacked to the sky in an affordable way, I have my doubts that this will change anything.
basseq 11y ago
Some math: A 208 sq-ft. mini-studio for $600/mo (+ the up-front purchase cost, whatever that is). That's $2.88/sq-ft. By way of example, I found a 538 sq-ft. studio in downtown Austin for $1,387/mo. That's $2.58/sq-ft. So, by area, the Kasita is more expensive. (This should not be surprising.) The argument then becomes one of absolute dollars: the difference between a 538 sq-ft. studio and a 208 sq-ft. Kasita being fairly moot, so hey, save $600+/mo. And I laud this: I think there's a great market for micro-housing. (See also: all the "Tiny House" shows on HGTV.) I don't understand why I need to buy a "pod" and then convince developers to put a "rack" on their lots. Just build smaller apartments: the math should work out.
- extrapickles 11y ago
  Its to allow you to easily move by shipping your pod with all of your stuff in it, no need to do as much packing/unpacking. Pretty much the only thing to move would be to secure breakables then lock your cabinets shut. This would make it easier to change employers as you only need to see if a potential employer has open rack space nearby, rather than dealing with possibly selling/buying a house or finding a suitable apartment nearby.
  - electriclove 11y ago
    How much stuff would a person living in a Kasita have? I'm skeptical that avoiding packing/unpacking hassles will be a driver of demand.
    - extrapickles 11y ago
      Its more of a friction reducer than anything. I find the appeal similar to the containerization technologies for computer software that have taken off recently. While having the binaries as part of the container is nice, the important part is that I can put my containers pretty much anywhere with minimal effort on my part and quickly/easily move if the current host tries charging too much. This basically is trying to do the same for housing. Also you are not locked into the whims of the developers of the racks as much as you are with an apartment. Like making lots of noise at 3AM? Buy a pod with lots of sound insulation, same goes for someone who works night-shift and wants to sleep at 6PM on Saturday when everyone else is having a party.
CullingTheHerd 11y ago
As has been stated in other comments, it's not that we don't have enough homes or that we don't have affordable homes. Perhaps the "free-market" is not the optimal distribution system for housing. Said another way, perhaps the manner in which we meet our most basic needs of shelter, security, and stability should not be left to the free market. A corollary then might be, perhaps if social and political frameworks had priority over (but not to the exclusion of) economic frameworks runaway real-estate prices might not so inevitably lead to the unnecessary but unyielding march of the unwilding of our environment (when there are massive tracts of dilapidated real-estate crying out for redevelopment), gentrification of communities and the concomitant loss the cultures of those pushed out into either the diaspora or relocated into projects, and the hand-to-mouth existence that many of us experience, even full-time and well paid persons. $600 houses are a red-herring to the real issues, not a solution to anything.
- zanny 11y ago
  Another option is to actually make it a free market by reintroducing homesteading. Undeveloped or unused land, after a period of abandonment, would effectively become open game for anyone to start developing and the previous owner would forfeit it. Using real estate as a store of wealth, like gold, is incredibly toxic for society, because it basically takes money (and in the case of real estate, land) out of the economy to mitigate fiscal risk.
  - HeyLaughingBoy 11y ago
    That's pretty much a non-starter. There's plenty of cheap, undeveloped land in the middle of the country for sale but there are few buyers. Out here where I live, it's not unusual for even very nice homes to be for sale for years before an offer comes in. In the middle of a city? If you have someone sitting on land waiting for the price to go up and you threaten them with "not using it," then odds are they'll put a cheap building on it and sell storage space or something. What would that accomplish?
    - rlonstein 11y ago
larrywright 11y ago
For what it's worth: here in the midwest, that's almost what I pay on the mortgage for a 3 bedroom, 2500 sq ft house.
electriclove 11y ago
Trailer park?
hippich 11y ago
basically, it is "rack-etized" mobile park. From my understanding, due local MUDs being over capacity and pretty expensive per-pad costs to bring sewer, electric, water (i assume they are not going to deal with gas.) mobile parks are no longer "easy" investments. I.e. from tech-standpoint it might be feasible. From consumer standpoint - price they are offering - not sure, we need to see price of the "kasitas". Unless something drastically changed during last few year, it should be possible to find decent "traditional" apartment for +- same amount. And if you account for price of "kasita" - it might actually become on par of fancier appartments. But most risk is in infrastructure for that project - it might get prohibitively expensive. and $1m does not sound like a lot to make that happen, unless they plan investors building "racks" AND pay for bringing up utilities AND dealing with state/MUD.
ck2 11y ago
This is hilariously naive for both the buyer and seller. Who wants to live in a space the size of your college dorm room past your freshman year? Also, all it takes is one bad neighbor and your life is hell since you have no space buffer. If not a booming stereo at all hours, then something as simple as slamming doors to wake you up at all hours. Young men, maybe, could deal with this for a short while. The turnover otherwise would be very high.
coldtea 11y ago
Don't really understand the US rent prices. I mean, I can understand SF or Manhattan being expensive. But the US has huge empty countryside, vastly expansive residential areas, AND, for the most part, houses that to European sensibilities seem like made for dolls (thin wood panels for walls, cheap construction, no concrete or real bricks to be seen, etc). And parts are much cheaper than in Europe. Both of these factors should keep prices very very low. $600 per month micro homes? You can get $600 per month regular, spacious home, in a city like Berlin -- and much lower in other places.
- ctdonath 11y ago
  Distance. Urbanites & Europeans don't seem to grasp how far it is between the affordable/cheap housing and the "tech centers" in downtown wherever (or how vast the USA is in general). I've got a reasonably good housing price in the 'burbs, but that means a 40+ minute drive in (leaving before 6:00AM, every minute thereafter = a minute longer drive), and 90+ minute drive back (leaving at 4:00PM prompt, again gets worse the later I leave). Sure, there's lots of cheap land not far out, but a major media company isn't going to relocate there, and us contractors aren't going to relocate just to be close to it. We also average bigger homes, roughly twice the size as in Europe.
  - coldtea 11y ago
    >Urbanites & Europeans don't seem to grasp how far it is between the affordable/cheap housing and the "tech centers" in downtown wherever (or how vast the USA is in general). Well, I'm probably an exception, as I've travelled all across the US (several coast to coast road trips and such, from Highway 1 to Route 66 and loads more). But I don't see a 10, 20 or 30 mile commute as a problem. He have those in Europe too, and in much worse highways or congestion in some cases (e.g. inside the city one can spend 30 minutes to get across 5 miles). >We also average bigger homes, roughly twice the size as in Europe. True, but also a lot of trailers and projects, which one doesn't see much, if at all, in Europe. The closest will be some small, confined, old buildings in Eastern Europe. (And I think our "projects" equivalent are much better).
    - 11y ago
trothamel 11y ago
Am I the only one thinking of the stacks from "Ready Player One"?
wahsd 11y ago
It's amazing how the hipster and tech-douche crowd loves solving problems they are the cause of. It's so wonderfully reflexive and blusteringly ignorant.
mikestew 11y ago
So this guy invented the hipster trailer court? Because the stereotype of a trailer court and its residents is something everyone wants in their neighborhood! (And, personally, I'd have no problem living in a mobile home in a trailer court, were it not for the people I'd likely live next to.)
Overtonwindow 11y ago
Move to Atlanta. Midtown apartment, 1,100 square feet, $980 per month. No tiny house or pad or lot or anything needed. Heck you could buy a 3,200 sq ft house 15mi from city center with a mortgage that's only $1,200 a month; like me.
Bjorkbat 11y ago
Meanwhile I live in Downtown Albuquerque for $770 a month plus < $100 a month for utilities. Maybe not as developed as downtown San Francisco (far from it actually), but there's still more breweries, music venues, coffee shops, and restaurants than I know what to do with. I can't take this solution seriously as long as I pay almost the same price for a loft apartment with exposed brick walls, bamboo flooring, a washer and dryer, and a number of other nice things that I'm too lazy to list. I especially can't take it seriously knowing that there are communities practically begging for people to reverse the trend of the rural exodus. Granted, the tech community isn't as strong here, but you'll still probably figure out a way to make things work if you've got out-of-state connections and don't mind dealing with our slightly confusing tax policy.
Animats 11y ago
Why is this in Austin? Ten miles from downtown Austin is farmland.
6stringmerc 11y ago
Maybe it was personal frustration when dealing with proprietary Sony connectors in audio-visual world, but I certainly wouldn't be interested in doing such a lock-in with my living arrangement. Nothing personal. Oh, in this economy though, and not in Austin, there are people renting ~$300/month rehearsal spaces and living in those around here. No showers or kitchen, but for those who want to be different in their own way, well, they find them. I personally dislike that work-around though.
ArkyBeagle 11y ago
You need a Big Pickup to move one ( you won't be moving it all the time ) but a fifth wheel is easily available now and has more square feet than those little cubelets. I came really close to making a business of nothing more than hauling used fifth wheels up to North Dakota during the oil boom.
pdharka 11y ago
"Wilson said people need to see it to believe." - I wonder how much he is doing that. If he could get some show like Big Brother to have to use the Kasitas for a season, that might break down the resistance of people, making it normal or even fashionable to live in it. AirBnB has a lot of research and data on housing, the market needs and prices all over the world. Finding common grounds with AirBnB (and having them invest) might give them the strategic partnership needed to find their product-market fit.
patrickg_zill 11y ago
You can go even tinier: http://www.amazon.com/Shafers-Book-Backyard-Sheds-Houses/dp/1565238168 http://www.amazon.com/Shafers-Book-Backyard-Sheds-Houses/dp/... 100 to 120 square feet. And they are (or can be made) transportable.
okyup 11y ago
Not really new. I've seen many companies creating similar homes - it's been popular for a few years at least. The more interesting ones (in my opinion) are the ones optimized to be highly efficient for living off-the-grid and self-sustainably. It's scary at the same time. Humans are getting smaller and smaller and more irrelevant and powerless and less individual. In the future we'll probably all live in little pods under some kind of gigantic government that controls our lives. Maybe we'll be happy, but we'll be shadows of the diverse and complex beings we once were.
- aaronbrethorst 11y ago
  Maybe we'll be happy, but we'll be shadows of the diverse and complex beings we once were These "diverse and complex beings" you refer to. When did we fit the model you're thinking of, exactly?
  - okyup 11y ago
    At all times up until present - constantly fluctuating, but generally trending upwards with the ascent of the evolution of life and of human beings. And perhaps it will continue for a long time yet. However, the majority of humans long to end it or at least to set it back.
SwellJoe 11y ago
I have lived, at various times, in a motorhome (240 square feet with the slide out), a travel trailer (190 square feet, and my current home), an apartment (600 square feet), a full sized house, a small house (800 square feet), and a big house with roommates. I am thoroughly sold on tiny houses. I don't need a McMansion to be happy. Don't want one, in fact. But, I don't like these and don't find them attractive, at all. They have the negatives of an apartment and none of the benefits of a tiny house, as I see them. The "rack" concept is antithetical to the independence I want from a tiny house...if I hate my landlord (as history indicates I will), or otherwise want to move, I have to relocate my whole house to another compatible rack. That virtually guarantees I can't move to where I want to move (because there's no way this is going to be hugely popular). So, I'm stuck selling the thing. Might as well buy an apartment (also a thing I would never do). I think they're trying to solve several problems at once, and ending up with a suboptimal solution for all of them. One problem is high rents in downtown Austin (which truly has gotten out of hand, and will only get worse as long as Austin remains the fastest growing city in the US), another problem is home ownership which is out of reach for more people than ever (for a variety of reasons, and it is most pronounced in growing cities), and finally I think the tiny house thing is a backlash against the suburban dream of huge houses. The thing is, though, that this won't be affordable...the small number of available locations to "park" your tiny house will guarantee the landlord is in a position of strength when negotiating rent so this will be more expensive than other tiny homes in general. The issue of wanting to own your own home isn't solved when you don't own the land it sits on, as you're still a renter with the added stress of what to do with the damned thing when you move. Anyway, I like that tiny houses are becoming more "normal". I don't like that the model for how it's being implemented looks a lot like renting.
deleted 11y ago
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teekert 11y ago
I'm pretty sure there is a market, but it feels so much like: "Here slave, have this small cabin." "Let's make this the new normal for the workers so they can do with even less wages as we increase profits." "Hey, what are you whining about? It looks like an iPhone inside out, doesn't it, it's design, isn't it?" "It has a microwave, hasn't it? You can live on mac and cheese. You know what, we'll place them on campus, you'll be home in a sec!"
- CalRobert 11y ago
  I don't disagree, but for some people the choice is between this and: * Your buddy's couch * 8 roommates * homelessness * Staying in an abusive relationship because you can't find housing
  - studentrob 11y ago
    Man that sounds rough. Is new job/city not an option there?
    - splitrocket 11y ago
      Moving is expensive, getting a new job doesn't necessarily increases your income and potentially increases your income volatility: how stable is the new job? Will you get fired? When you have no extra cash, opportunity costs make some changes impossible.
    - CalRobert 11y ago
      Depends. For me, probably you, sure, but for the average person a decent job and apartment can be hard to come by. For a few months last year I was apartment hunting while unemployed, and you'd think I was radioactive. I offered to pay the year's rent up front at one point and that spooked the landlord even more; apparently they thought my income was illicit.
- OliverJones 11y ago
  On campus, eh? Maybe the big companies who attract lots of well paid workers to certain crowded cities should make themselves customers of these projects, and put some of their vast resources into making them work well. I'm looking at you, Google and Facebook.
CalRobert 11y ago
Of course, one of the issues with small homes in the US is that you're usually legally forced to add parking, which might take even more space than these homes. What good is a 300 square foot home when you're legally forced to build 400 square feet of parking for it? In San Diego it's illegal to build a house unless it comes with 2 parking spaces. An apartment requires 1.25 spaces. This is ridiculous, of course, and part of why most US cities that were built after the 40's are dreadful.
Zigurd 11y ago
Comparing Kasita with the cheapest rents just means it isn't for those markets.The question is whether there are enough high cost markets where Kasita rack density and potential speed of installation for Kasita is financially compelling to the developer and Kasita owner to make sense. In very general terms, in the US, Kasita will be a tough sell. In most places land is cheap enough that something like the Rural Studio $20k home designs, which are around 550 sq ft, are going to prove significantly more cost-effective.
vansteen 11y ago
Comparing to a flat in my city Paris, France... Many people (student, young professional) lives in small flats like that. I lived in a flat like that. The price of a 25sq-meters flat (= 270sq-ft, the Kasita) is around 200 000 US$ . To rent one, it's around 850 US$/month I lived in London too. It's even more expensive.
jokoon 11y ago
If you consider the 5% of the poorest people, and consider the environmental cost of concrete, and how dense urban areas are stressful and that there needs to be more space between homes, then this totally makes sense. What I'm more worried about is insulation, humidity, and other stuff like mold and durability. Also those types of house are not really viable if you can't sit down just outside next to it if there is too much noise or pollution. So to be honest, it seems to be more a problem of urban planning than anything else, which can be political. A tiny house is interesting if other parameters makes it interesting.

119 points by alexjray 11y ago

"Kasitas" is slang for "Casita", which means "little home" in Spanish

This is where I'd like to see more innovation. The kind of stuff that takes most of the time and money for most people. Housing, cleaning, food storage, plumbing, transport, security. How come cars, homes, wholesome dinners, home repair, car repair costs more or about the same as 20-30 years ago. We have more and more materials to work with, efficiencies of industrial processes and machines has improved and more stuff is automated. How come the little guy/gal is not getting any of it other than the internet? In many part of, say the Rust Belt, or many innner cities there are tons of abandoned buildings and houses. If only the repairs and maintenance costs decreased, a lot of people could use them.

alexjray 11y ago
Completely agree baltcode, as amazing as teslas and iphones are homes are the center point for everything else. There is a huge housing crisis and it effects much more of the economy, environment and community than most people realize and I can't help but feel like there is much more innovation to be had on this front!
- mathgeek 11y ago
  The problem you run into is that housing (the land, really) is both a useful object and a rather solid investment. It's that dual functionality that makes it a different problem from disposable objects (iPhones and cars, as examples). Very few cars or phones are purchased as investments directly (meaning you see the value appreciate). Housing is almost exclusively an investment, both for finances (whether collecting rent or being able to leverage the value down the road) and for the land it sits on. A world where most housing becomes disposable (i.e. it is not directly tied to the land it sits on) would be very different from the one we currently live in.
  - baltcode 11y ago
    True, though I'd like to understand it on deeper level. For example, how much of a house or condo price due to the land and how much of it construction, maintenance, taxes? In any case, at least for building straight up, there is scope for improvement even with the land remaining a bottleneck.
    - ghaff 11y ago
      It varies enormously although there tends to be some correlation between the size and cost level of the house and the price of the land it's on. Someone's probably not going to buy a million dollar parcel of land and put a shack on it (even if they were allowed to by zoning--which they probably wouldn't be). The general rule of thumb is $100-200 a square foot for houses so a fairly typical 2,000 square foot house is going to probably cost in the neighborhood of $300K to build. That assumes the land has water, electricity, sewer/septic, etc. So for fairly typical exurb/suburban locations (i.e. not Bay area, Manhattan, or back of beyond), the house and the land are probably roughly the same value.
  - derekp7 11y ago
    "A world where most housing becomes disposable (i.e. it is not directly tied to the land it sits on) would be very different from the one we currently live in." So basically the trailer park model?
    - mathgeek 11y ago
      That's what I envision, but I like to be optimistic that it wouldn't be that bad.
      - derekp7 11y ago
        One variation is the campground model. I have a camper parked at a fairly decent campground, costs are about 2.5K a year (plus electricity and waste disposal). But where I live the camping season is about 5 months. However, it doesn't have the feel of a trailer park -- instead if feels like a resort area.
ghaff 11y ago
>How come cars, homes, wholesome dinners, home repair, car repair costs more or about the same as 20-30 years ago Cars primarily because cars today have a lot more "stuff" in them--in many cases, safety related. Although I'm not sure given improved reliability that the $/mile cost isn't less I wouldn't be surprised if the cost of some fresh food has dropped but it's probably not a lot cheaper across the board. Mechanized farming has been around for a long time. Home and car repair are largely a function of labor. There's relatively little benefit in either case to improved industrial processes. The process of building a house hasn't changed much and manufactured housing has never really taken off for a variety of reasons.
OliverJones 11y ago
Yes. In urban areas housing is, almost by definition, not affordable any more. Yet there's still a cultural stigma coming from living in mass-produced housing like trailer parks or high-rise projects like the late unlamented Robert Taylor Homes in Chicago. Just because le Corbusier's brutalist mid-20th-century vision gave urban manufactured housing a multigenerational bad name doesn't mean the whole project is stupid. I wonder if Habitat for Humanity or some other experienced org with an ethical core could have something to add to this project.

epenn 11y ago

Please be safe to live in... then please, please, please build these in Boston.

jhallenworld 11y ago
Maybe something like it will happen.. https://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2015/04/05/boston-housing-should-more-like-legos/VhlYKBOFEFsoKVBlywX8dL/story.html https://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2015/04/05/boston-housin...
mmcwilliams 11y ago
They've been building micro units in Boston for a while now, but the results are less than impressive: http://realestate.boston.com/news/2014/11/26/micro-units-pop-up-in-boston-fetch-high-prices/ http://realestate.boston.com/news/2014/11/26/micro-units-pop... $2,000/mo for 420sqft
- ghaff 11y ago
  Although I don't have the figures, I suspect that by the time you factor in all the infrastructure for a unit (elevators, common areas, hallways, parking (?), etc.) you don't really cut out all that much cost by reducing units by a few hundred square feet. Seaport rents are particularly extreme for reasons that I confess I don't fully understand but you definitely get into diminishing returns as you decrease apartment size.

dpflan 11y ago

It's important to note that this is not a one-time $600 apparently. It's more like, find a developer who has created a rack, and pay to rent a space in that rack and plug in your home and continuing paying for space in that rack. I guess moving is a lot easier - just find a rack in another location. "The idea is to have developers purchase racks and individuals purchase Kasitas that fit into them. The developers would make money with homeowner association fees. And homeowners would own their Kasita, paying about $600 a month -- or about half of an equivalent studio in central Austin." [from linked source] But I'm still even confused by this wording and the $600 tag - is it just cheaper rent in another form and a different ownership model?

alexjray 11y ago
dpflan, I am a bit confused about the price as well, the exact cost of owning one of these seems to something that is still under development. Im sure this is something that will fluctuate between cities and demand. From reading a couple articles on this the only consistent thing I've heard is that they are shooting for a price that is well below $1,600.
- dpflan 11y ago
  Thanks for digging deeper. Would you mind posting any references?
  - alexjray 11y ago
    It actually says it right on the website ^1"Through partnerships with local entities, Kasita will rent units at about half the market rate of a studio apartment." heres is also a nice counter agrument to Kasita. [1] https://kasita.com/kasita/ https://kasita.com/kasita/ [2] http://www.citylab.com/housing/2015/12/micro-modular-apartments-wont-work/420960/ http://www.citylab.com/housing/2015/12/micro-modular-apartme...
triangleman 11y ago
The title needs to be changed to "$600 per month micro homes"

cphuntington97 11y ago

Une maison est une machine-à-habiter.

Isamu 11y ago
Le Corbusier! I guessed right. Now I have to admit I don't really know what he meant by this.
- cphuntington97 11y ago
  Pick any modern automobile, and you can drive to your destination with ease. Each car maximizes some manner of cost, comfort, materials, efficiency, and safety. Compare a modern car with a 100 year old vehicle, and you will find innovation in absolutely every area. A machine for moving people. You don't need to bring anything with you. You don't need to bring your own chair to sit in, for example - the car already has that. Now, pick any modern house. You will find almost no innovation compared to a house that is 100 years old. You'll need to bring your own chair, since the house just has empty rooms. Think of all the things you need to do in order to live. Shouldn't the architect of the house take all of these activities into consideration? Le Corbusier uses such examples as -- shouldn't there be a place to store artwork, so that there is always something different on the wall? Shouldn't there be recessed lighting, so there is no dusty chandelier to clean? Shouldn't there be as much natural light as possible, to avoid the need for artificial light in the first place? Shouldn't the house be a machine for living, just as the car is a machine for driving? Where style is not bolted on, but rather the formal outcome of functionality? Another phrase he uses that I really like, "the answer to a question well posed," or, "the solution to a problem well posed." But anyway, I'm rambling. Read "Toward An Architecture." Any book that gets a new translation at almost 100 years old is probably worth a gander.

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eastbayjake 11y ago

If Oakland city leaders were more proactive, they might use their 90 day rent hike / eviction moratorium[1] to recruit modular builders and create zoning exceptions for this type of housing. $600/month would be a lifesaver as median rent in Oakland hits $2950 for a two-bedroom. (It would also probably be a cheaper way for SF to house the homeless than acquiring or building new SROs.) [1] http://sf.curbed.com/2016/4/5/11365144/oakland-rent-eviction-moratorium-city-council http://sf.curbed.com/2016/4/5/11365144/oakland-rent-eviction...

pessimizer 11y ago
The rent isn't engineered into the building.

geogra4 11y ago

The problem isn't that there aren't enough homes, or that we don't know how to build cheap homes. It's simply that desirable land is so incredibly expensive. Unless these homes can be stacked to the sky in an affordable way, I have my doubts that this will change anything.

basseq 11y ago

Some math: A 208 sq-ft. mini-studio for $600/mo (+ the up-front purchase cost, whatever that is). That's $2.88/sq-ft. By way of example, I found a 538 sq-ft. studio in downtown Austin for $1,387/mo. That's $2.58/sq-ft. So, by area, the Kasita is more expensive. (This should not be surprising.) The argument then becomes one of absolute dollars: the difference between a 538 sq-ft. studio and a 208 sq-ft. Kasita being fairly moot, so hey, save $600+/mo. And I laud this: I think there's a great market for micro-housing. (See also: all the "Tiny House" shows on HGTV.) I don't understand why I need to buy a "pod" and then convince developers to put a "rack" on their lots. Just build smaller apartments: the math should work out.

extrapickles 11y ago
Its to allow you to easily move by shipping your pod with all of your stuff in it, no need to do as much packing/unpacking. Pretty much the only thing to move would be to secure breakables then lock your cabinets shut. This would make it easier to change employers as you only need to see if a potential employer has open rack space nearby, rather than dealing with possibly selling/buying a house or finding a suitable apartment nearby.
- electriclove 11y ago
  How much stuff would a person living in a Kasita have? I'm skeptical that avoiding packing/unpacking hassles will be a driver of demand.
  - extrapickles 11y ago
    Its more of a friction reducer than anything. I find the appeal similar to the containerization technologies for computer software that have taken off recently. While having the binaries as part of the container is nice, the important part is that I can put my containers pretty much anywhere with minimal effort on my part and quickly/easily move if the current host tries charging too much. This basically is trying to do the same for housing. Also you are not locked into the whims of the developers of the racks as much as you are with an apartment. Like making lots of noise at 3AM? Buy a pod with lots of sound insulation, same goes for someone who works night-shift and wants to sleep at 6PM on Saturday when everyone else is having a party.

CullingTheHerd 11y ago

As has been stated in other comments, it's not that we don't have enough homes or that we don't have affordable homes. Perhaps the "free-market" is not the optimal distribution system for housing. Said another way, perhaps the manner in which we meet our most basic needs of shelter, security, and stability should not be left to the free market. A corollary then might be, perhaps if social and political frameworks had priority over (but not to the exclusion of) economic frameworks runaway real-estate prices might not so inevitably lead to the unnecessary but unyielding march of the unwilding of our environment (when there are massive tracts of dilapidated real-estate crying out for redevelopment), gentrification of communities and the concomitant loss the cultures of those pushed out into either the diaspora or relocated into projects, and the hand-to-mouth existence that many of us experience, even full-time and well paid persons. $600 houses are a red-herring to the real issues, not a solution to anything.

zanny 11y ago
Another option is to actually make it a free market by reintroducing homesteading. Undeveloped or unused land, after a period of abandonment, would effectively become open game for anyone to start developing and the previous owner would forfeit it. Using real estate as a store of wealth, like gold, is incredibly toxic for society, because it basically takes money (and in the case of real estate, land) out of the economy to mitigate fiscal risk.
- HeyLaughingBoy 11y ago
  That's pretty much a non-starter. There's plenty of cheap, undeveloped land in the middle of the country for sale but there are few buyers. Out here where I live, it's not unusual for even very nice homes to be for sale for years before an offer comes in. In the middle of a city? If you have someone sitting on land waiting for the price to go up and you threaten them with "not using it," then odds are they'll put a cheap building on it and sell storage space or something. What would that accomplish?
  - rlonstein 11y ago

larrywright 11y ago

For what it's worth: here in the midwest, that's almost what I pay on the mortgage for a 3 bedroom, 2500 sq ft house.

electriclove 11y ago

Trailer park?

hippich 11y ago

basically, it is "rack-etized" mobile park. From my understanding, due local MUDs being over capacity and pretty expensive per-pad costs to bring sewer, electric, water (i assume they are not going to deal with gas.) mobile parks are no longer "easy" investments. I.e. from tech-standpoint it might be feasible. From consumer standpoint - price they are offering - not sure, we need to see price of the "kasitas". Unless something drastically changed during last few year, it should be possible to find decent "traditional" apartment for +- same amount. And if you account for price of "kasita" - it might actually become on par of fancier appartments. But most risk is in infrastructure for that project - it might get prohibitively expensive. and $1m does not sound like a lot to make that happen, unless they plan investors building "racks" AND pay for bringing up utilities AND dealing with state/MUD.

ck2 11y ago

This is hilariously naive for both the buyer and seller. Who wants to live in a space the size of your college dorm room past your freshman year? Also, all it takes is one bad neighbor and your life is hell since you have no space buffer. If not a booming stereo at all hours, then something as simple as slamming doors to wake you up at all hours. Young men, maybe, could deal with this for a short while. The turnover otherwise would be very high.

coldtea 11y ago

Don't really understand the US rent prices. I mean, I can understand SF or Manhattan being expensive. But the US has huge empty countryside, vastly expansive residential areas, AND, for the most part, houses that to European sensibilities seem like made for dolls (thin wood panels for walls, cheap construction, no concrete or real bricks to be seen, etc). And parts are much cheaper than in Europe. Both of these factors should keep prices very very low. $600 per month micro homes? You can get $600 per month regular, spacious home, in a city like Berlin -- and much lower in other places.

ctdonath 11y ago
Distance. Urbanites & Europeans don't seem to grasp how far it is between the affordable/cheap housing and the "tech centers" in downtown wherever (or how vast the USA is in general). I've got a reasonably good housing price in the 'burbs, but that means a 40+ minute drive in (leaving before 6:00AM, every minute thereafter = a minute longer drive), and 90+ minute drive back (leaving at 4:00PM prompt, again gets worse the later I leave). Sure, there's lots of cheap land not far out, but a major media company isn't going to relocate there, and us contractors aren't going to relocate just to be close to it. We also average bigger homes, roughly twice the size as in Europe.
- coldtea 11y ago
  >Urbanites & Europeans don't seem to grasp how far it is between the affordable/cheap housing and the "tech centers" in downtown wherever (or how vast the USA is in general). Well, I'm probably an exception, as I've travelled all across the US (several coast to coast road trips and such, from Highway 1 to Route 66 and loads more). But I don't see a 10, 20 or 30 mile commute as a problem. He have those in Europe too, and in much worse highways or congestion in some cases (e.g. inside the city one can spend 30 minutes to get across 5 miles). >We also average bigger homes, roughly twice the size as in Europe. True, but also a lot of trailers and projects, which one doesn't see much, if at all, in Europe. The closest will be some small, confined, old buildings in Eastern Europe. (And I think our "projects" equivalent are much better).
  - 11y ago

trothamel 11y ago

Am I the only one thinking of the stacks from "Ready Player One"?

wahsd 11y ago

It's amazing how the hipster and tech-douche crowd loves solving problems they are the cause of. It's so wonderfully reflexive and blusteringly ignorant.

mikestew 11y ago

So this guy invented the hipster trailer court? Because the stereotype of a trailer court and its residents is something everyone wants in their neighborhood! (And, personally, I'd have no problem living in a mobile home in a trailer court, were it not for the people I'd likely live next to.)

Overtonwindow 11y ago

Move to Atlanta. Midtown apartment, 1,100 square feet, $980 per month. No tiny house or pad or lot or anything needed. Heck you could buy a 3,200 sq ft house 15mi from city center with a mortgage that's only $1,200 a month; like me.

Bjorkbat 11y ago

Meanwhile I live in Downtown Albuquerque for $770 a month plus < $100 a month for utilities. Maybe not as developed as downtown San Francisco (far from it actually), but there's still more breweries, music venues, coffee shops, and restaurants than I know what to do with. I can't take this solution seriously as long as I pay almost the same price for a loft apartment with exposed brick walls, bamboo flooring, a washer and dryer, and a number of other nice things that I'm too lazy to list. I especially can't take it seriously knowing that there are communities practically begging for people to reverse the trend of the rural exodus. Granted, the tech community isn't as strong here, but you'll still probably figure out a way to make things work if you've got out-of-state connections and don't mind dealing with our slightly confusing tax policy.

Animats 11y ago

Why is this in Austin? Ten miles from downtown Austin is farmland.

6stringmerc 11y ago

Maybe it was personal frustration when dealing with proprietary Sony connectors in audio-visual world, but I certainly wouldn't be interested in doing such a lock-in with my living arrangement. Nothing personal. Oh, in this economy though, and not in Austin, there are people renting ~$300/month rehearsal spaces and living in those around here. No showers or kitchen, but for those who want to be different in their own way, well, they find them. I personally dislike that work-around though.

ArkyBeagle 11y ago

You need a Big Pickup to move one ( you won't be moving it all the time ) but a fifth wheel is easily available now and has more square feet than those little cubelets. I came really close to making a business of nothing more than hauling used fifth wheels up to North Dakota during the oil boom.

pdharka 11y ago

"Wilson said people need to see it to believe." - I wonder how much he is doing that. If he could get some show like Big Brother to have to use the Kasitas for a season, that might break down the resistance of people, making it normal or even fashionable to live in it. AirBnB has a lot of research and data on housing, the market needs and prices all over the world. Finding common grounds with AirBnB (and having them invest) might give them the strategic partnership needed to find their product-market fit.

patrickg_zill 11y ago

You can go even tinier: http://www.amazon.com/Shafers-Book-Backyard-Sheds-Houses/dp/1565238168 http://www.amazon.com/Shafers-Book-Backyard-Sheds-Houses/dp/... 100 to 120 square feet. And they are (or can be made) transportable.

okyup 11y ago

Not really new. I've seen many companies creating similar homes - it's been popular for a few years at least. The more interesting ones (in my opinion) are the ones optimized to be highly efficient for living off-the-grid and self-sustainably. It's scary at the same time. Humans are getting smaller and smaller and more irrelevant and powerless and less individual. In the future we'll probably all live in little pods under some kind of gigantic government that controls our lives. Maybe we'll be happy, but we'll be shadows of the diverse and complex beings we once were.

aaronbrethorst 11y ago
Maybe we'll be happy, but we'll be shadows of the diverse and complex beings we once were These "diverse and complex beings" you refer to. When did we fit the model you're thinking of, exactly?
- okyup 11y ago
  At all times up until present - constantly fluctuating, but generally trending upwards with the ascent of the evolution of life and of human beings. And perhaps it will continue for a long time yet. However, the majority of humans long to end it or at least to set it back.

SwellJoe 11y ago

I have lived, at various times, in a motorhome (240 square feet with the slide out), a travel trailer (190 square feet, and my current home), an apartment (600 square feet), a full sized house, a small house (800 square feet), and a big house with roommates. I am thoroughly sold on tiny houses. I don't need a McMansion to be happy. Don't want one, in fact. But, I don't like these and don't find them attractive, at all. They have the negatives of an apartment and none of the benefits of a tiny house, as I see them. The "rack" concept is antithetical to the independence I want from a tiny house...if I hate my landlord (as history indicates I will), or otherwise want to move, I have to relocate my whole house to another compatible rack. That virtually guarantees I can't move to where I want to move (because there's no way this is going to be hugely popular). So, I'm stuck selling the thing. Might as well buy an apartment (also a thing I would never do). I think they're trying to solve several problems at once, and ending up with a suboptimal solution for all of them. One problem is high rents in downtown Austin (which truly has gotten out of hand, and will only get worse as long as Austin remains the fastest growing city in the US), another problem is home ownership which is out of reach for more people than ever (for a variety of reasons, and it is most pronounced in growing cities), and finally I think the tiny house thing is a backlash against the suburban dream of huge houses. The thing is, though, that this won't be affordable...the small number of available locations to "park" your tiny house will guarantee the landlord is in a position of strength when negotiating rent so this will be more expensive than other tiny homes in general. The issue of wanting to own your own home isn't solved when you don't own the land it sits on, as you're still a renter with the added stress of what to do with the damned thing when you move. Anyway, I like that tiny houses are becoming more "normal". I don't like that the model for how it's being implemented looks a lot like renting.

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teekert 11y ago

I'm pretty sure there is a market, but it feels so much like: "Here slave, have this small cabin." "Let's make this the new normal for the workers so they can do with even less wages as we increase profits." "Hey, what are you whining about? It looks like an iPhone inside out, doesn't it, it's design, isn't it?" "It has a microwave, hasn't it? You can live on mac and cheese. You know what, we'll place them on campus, you'll be home in a sec!"

CalRobert 11y ago
I don't disagree, but for some people the choice is between this and: * Your buddy's couch * 8 roommates * homelessness * Staying in an abusive relationship because you can't find housing
- studentrob 11y ago
  Man that sounds rough. Is new job/city not an option there?
  - splitrocket 11y ago
    Moving is expensive, getting a new job doesn't necessarily increases your income and potentially increases your income volatility: how stable is the new job? Will you get fired? When you have no extra cash, opportunity costs make some changes impossible.
  - CalRobert 11y ago
    Depends. For me, probably you, sure, but for the average person a decent job and apartment can be hard to come by. For a few months last year I was apartment hunting while unemployed, and you'd think I was radioactive. I offered to pay the year's rent up front at one point and that spooked the landlord even more; apparently they thought my income was illicit.
OliverJones 11y ago
On campus, eh? Maybe the big companies who attract lots of well paid workers to certain crowded cities should make themselves customers of these projects, and put some of their vast resources into making them work well. I'm looking at you, Google and Facebook.

CalRobert 11y ago

Of course, one of the issues with small homes in the US is that you're usually legally forced to add parking, which might take even more space than these homes. What good is a 300 square foot home when you're legally forced to build 400 square feet of parking for it? In San Diego it's illegal to build a house unless it comes with 2 parking spaces. An apartment requires 1.25 spaces. This is ridiculous, of course, and part of why most US cities that were built after the 40's are dreadful.

Zigurd 11y ago

Comparing Kasita with the cheapest rents just means it isn't for those markets.The question is whether there are enough high cost markets where Kasita rack density and potential speed of installation for Kasita is financially compelling to the developer and Kasita owner to make sense. In very general terms, in the US, Kasita will be a tough sell. In most places land is cheap enough that something like the Rural Studio $20k home designs, which are around 550 sq ft, are going to prove significantly more cost-effective.

vansteen 11y ago

Comparing to a flat in my city Paris, France... Many people (student, young professional) lives in small flats like that. I lived in a flat like that. The price of a 25sq-meters flat (= 270sq-ft, the Kasita) is around 200 000 US$ . To rent one, it's around 850 US$/month I lived in London too. It's even more expensive.

jokoon 11y ago

If you consider the 5% of the poorest people, and consider the environmental cost of concrete, and how dense urban areas are stressful and that there needs to be more space between homes, then this totally makes sense. What I'm more worried about is insulation, humidity, and other stuff like mold and durability. Also those types of house are not really viable if you can't sit down just outside next to it if there is too much noise or pollution. So to be honest, it seems to be more a problem of urban planning than anything else, which can be political. A tiny house is interesting if other parameters makes it interesting.