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Comment by headcanon | Hacker News Reader

I'm curious as to why they are choosing to start their pilot program in the Bay Area - they're not a software startup, so why choose one of the most expensive areas in the world to rent/purchase land? There's a lot of land out there with easier avenues to self-sufficiency that are just a plane ride away at the most, I cant imagine them needing to be close to an urban area at all actually.

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The type of tenant they seem to be targeting, young, mobile and willing to rent a room in a well managed share house exist in high rent, high rent urban areas. If you can rent a furnished townhouse for $750, no one needs this. If the rock bottom rent for a studio is $1,300, some people might prefer to be in one of these boarding houses with a better location instead.

From my understanding they essentially start as a "co-housing network"- which makes a lot of sense in SF/Bay

At second glance, you seem correct - I seem to have misunderstood the nature of this venture. I was under the impression they were building distributed urban settlements in strategic but unpopulated areas (which would require large amounts of capital and/or land).

> why choose one of the most expensive areas in the world to rent/purchase land?

So that they can charge the highest rent / purchase costs and look good on paper for the inevitable takeover / IPO / payout?

I don't know the numbers, though it seems easier to find potential renters more easily in the city. It's about $1.4k with no long-term lease (using the cheapest room for Lower Pac Heights) which is about the same you would find for a single in SoCal (albeit with a contract lease).

So, potential residents have the benefits of like-minded roommates, tech-driven area, and no-contract housing.

Other cities could have better profit for the landowner to rent out, but it would only really share the no-contract perk.

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