4 ms·

In Los Altos, Brandon Williams crams 14 tenants into a four-bedroom, two-bathroom house -- where monthly rates for a bed start at $1,000. He leases the bungalow

by bahro 11y ago

In Los Altos, Brandon Williams crams 14 tenants into a four-bedroom, two-bathroom house -- where monthly rates for a bed start at $1,000. He leases the bungalow from a Chinese venture capitalist for about $6,800, which he can more than double when all the beds are occupied. “This is scalable,” said Williams, 28, a freelance electrical engineer. “I know a guy who has about 12 of these.” What a scumbag.

amalag 11y ago
Is that legal?
- Kalium 11y ago
  Of course not. It's also probably a more humane solution than the currently popular option - don't build anything at all.
  - austenallred 11y ago
    How do you know that's not legal?
    - deleted 11y ago
      [deleted]
    - Kalium 11y ago
      There are generally pretty strict laws about how many people you can cram into how big a single-family residence. Multi-family residences (read: apartment buildings) are regulated differently.
unavoidable 11y ago
> monthly rates for a bed start at $1,000 This is the truly insane part.
austenallred 11y ago
>What a scumbag I wouldn't say it's his fault. He's not doing it for charity, sure, but it's not his fault that the prices are insane. He's not forcing people to live there. People double their money where I live renting places for $350/bed. People either can't afford a whole place to themselves or don't want to risk the hassle of renting an entire place and subleasing it, so they rent, realizing their combined rent is making a profit for the owner. It's just arbitrage. > He leases the bungalow from a Chinese venture capitalist for about $6,800 That is just insane.
- serge2k 11y ago
  No, but he's profiting off other people's misfortune.
  - austenallred 11y ago
    I don't think that's fair. You're assuming that because the rent is $1,000/month he's a douchebag. The bay area has prices that are higher than Manhattan's. He's trying to provide cheap housing in an area where the prices are absolutely insane (try to find a room cheaper than that in Los Altos). He makes a profit from doing so - I don't think that makes him a terrible person. Again, no one is forcing them to live there. They can come live where I do and get a three-bedroom house for $750/month, but they apparently want to live there. He gives them that chance.
  - rwallace 11y ago
    What of that? Profiting from people's misfortune is not in and of itself wrong. (If it were, we would have to start by condemning every doctor in the world.) What's wrong is causing misfortune. If anyone is to be called scumbags, it should be the people who vote for laws restricting the construction of new housing. That's what creates these conditions.
  - white-flame 11y ago
    If somebody forces people of misfortune to pay more because they're stuck, just to make a buck, that's pretty inarguably unethical. If somebody gives people of misfortune a significantly cheaper option, which has its fair tradeoffs in delivered product, while still being profitable, I don't see much of a problem.
superuser2 11y ago
I live in one of these in San Francisco, and honestly I love it. For $1700/mo I can live in a nice residential neighborhood with a <10 minute commute. There's a full kitchen and a very spacious common area with couches, tables, a TV, and plenty of power. I sleep in one of the eight bunks in the master bedroom, right next to a balcony with a beautiful view of the skyline. Most of us are interns and temp contractors, with an occasional "adult" passing through while looking for permanent housing. Honestly, it's a lot nicer than my University housing and not much more expensive. Without it, I'd have to either live somewhere where I fear for my safety, add 1-2 hours of BART commute onto my workday (and lose easy access to SF restaurants/culture), or spend $2500-$4000 for a studio in a comparable neighborhood.
- ghaff 11y ago
  I'm not contradicting you, but $1700/mo for an incredibly overcrowded dorm room? Undergrad, doubles converted to triples were considered overcrowded. Wow. Maybe that's the norm in SF these days but it's not something I would have ever considered post-school.
  - superuser2 11y ago
    The master bedroom is huge; a king-size bed would have taken less than 30% of the floor. There are two walk-in closets and a private bath. Downstairs, there are 2 bedrooms that could have easily held 2 twin beds each, and another small room that could have taken 1 twin bed. As a single-family home it would have comfortably slept 7. It's probably 2-3x larger than my childhood home and would have fetched $750,000+ in the suburban Midwest. Convert all those twins to bunk beds (as my landlord did) and you've got 10 people across the downstairs bedrooms. Replace the king-size bed with 2 bunk beds, you've got 4 beds in the space where 1 was. 14 people sleeping in the same amount of floor space that 7 previously occupied. Now take the vast empty floor space in the master bedroom and add 2 bunk beds, and you're at the 18 that I live with. It doesn't feel crowded. It has the same drawbacks that any room-sharing situation has - you're never alone, you have to hear people breathe and snore and shift around in bed, there's no possibility of having sex (you can sexile one person - not 7), you have to smell people's smells. But it's no worse than living in a double in college, summer camp, etc. I had no chance of bringing a girl home anyway, the sounds are drowned out by the city/wind when you've got a window open, and everyone is polite and sensitive to the fact that we're sharing space. A portion of that price also goes to Airbnb, which gives me trust/reputation, escrow, precisely the dates of stay I wanted, and no monthslong Craigslist game as is usually necessary to sublet in SF.
lnanek2 11y ago
Doesn't sound bad to me at all. I'd happily live in a shipping container to get rid of my one hour BART commute either way each day. My east bay rent is more than double that too. It seems better in every way that matters to me.

by bahro 11y ago

amalag 11y ago

Is that legal?

Kalium 11y ago
Of course not. It's also probably a more humane solution than the currently popular option - don't build anything at all.
- austenallred 11y ago
  How do you know that's not legal?
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
  - Kalium 11y ago
    There are generally pretty strict laws about how many people you can cram into how big a single-family residence. Multi-family residences (read: apartment buildings) are regulated differently.

unavoidable 11y ago

> monthly rates for a bed start at $1,000 This is the truly insane part.

austenallred 11y ago

>What a scumbag I wouldn't say it's his fault. He's not doing it for charity, sure, but it's not his fault that the prices are insane. He's not forcing people to live there. People double their money where I live renting places for $350/bed. People either can't afford a whole place to themselves or don't want to risk the hassle of renting an entire place and subleasing it, so they rent, realizing their combined rent is making a profit for the owner. It's just arbitrage. > He leases the bungalow from a Chinese venture capitalist for about $6,800 That is just insane.

serge2k 11y ago
No, but he's profiting off other people's misfortune.
- austenallred 11y ago
  I don't think that's fair. You're assuming that because the rent is $1,000/month he's a douchebag. The bay area has prices that are higher than Manhattan's. He's trying to provide cheap housing in an area where the prices are absolutely insane (try to find a room cheaper than that in Los Altos). He makes a profit from doing so - I don't think that makes him a terrible person. Again, no one is forcing them to live there. They can come live where I do and get a three-bedroom house for $750/month, but they apparently want to live there. He gives them that chance.
- rwallace 11y ago
  What of that? Profiting from people's misfortune is not in and of itself wrong. (If it were, we would have to start by condemning every doctor in the world.) What's wrong is causing misfortune. If anyone is to be called scumbags, it should be the people who vote for laws restricting the construction of new housing. That's what creates these conditions.
- white-flame 11y ago
  If somebody forces people of misfortune to pay more because they're stuck, just to make a buck, that's pretty inarguably unethical. If somebody gives people of misfortune a significantly cheaper option, which has its fair tradeoffs in delivered product, while still being profitable, I don't see much of a problem.

superuser2 11y ago

I live in one of these in San Francisco, and honestly I love it. For $1700/mo I can live in a nice residential neighborhood with a <10 minute commute. There's a full kitchen and a very spacious common area with couches, tables, a TV, and plenty of power. I sleep in one of the eight bunks in the master bedroom, right next to a balcony with a beautiful view of the skyline. Most of us are interns and temp contractors, with an occasional "adult" passing through while looking for permanent housing. Honestly, it's a lot nicer than my University housing and not much more expensive. Without it, I'd have to either live somewhere where I fear for my safety, add 1-2 hours of BART commute onto my workday (and lose easy access to SF restaurants/culture), or spend $2500-$4000 for a studio in a comparable neighborhood.

ghaff 11y ago
I'm not contradicting you, but $1700/mo for an incredibly overcrowded dorm room? Undergrad, doubles converted to triples were considered overcrowded. Wow. Maybe that's the norm in SF these days but it's not something I would have ever considered post-school.
- superuser2 11y ago
  The master bedroom is huge; a king-size bed would have taken less than 30% of the floor. There are two walk-in closets and a private bath. Downstairs, there are 2 bedrooms that could have easily held 2 twin beds each, and another small room that could have taken 1 twin bed. As a single-family home it would have comfortably slept 7. It's probably 2-3x larger than my childhood home and would have fetched $750,000+ in the suburban Midwest. Convert all those twins to bunk beds (as my landlord did) and you've got 10 people across the downstairs bedrooms. Replace the king-size bed with 2 bunk beds, you've got 4 beds in the space where 1 was. 14 people sleeping in the same amount of floor space that 7 previously occupied. Now take the vast empty floor space in the master bedroom and add 2 bunk beds, and you're at the 18 that I live with. It doesn't feel crowded. It has the same drawbacks that any room-sharing situation has - you're never alone, you have to hear people breathe and snore and shift around in bed, there's no possibility of having sex (you can sexile one person - not 7), you have to smell people's smells. But it's no worse than living in a double in college, summer camp, etc. I had no chance of bringing a girl home anyway, the sounds are drowned out by the city/wind when you've got a window open, and everyone is polite and sensitive to the fact that we're sharing space. A portion of that price also goes to Airbnb, which gives me trust/reputation, escrow, precisely the dates of stay I wanted, and no monthslong Craigslist game as is usually necessary to sublet in SF.

lnanek2 11y ago

Doesn't sound bad to me at all. I'd happily live in a shipping container to get rid of my one hour BART commute either way each day. My east bay rent is more than double that too. It seems better in every way that matters to me.