Startup thinks millennials want to live in shared-housing units
Startup thinks millennials want to live in shared-housing units

							

The race is on to disrupt New York’s rental-housing market — and a deep-pocketed developer is targeting Crown Heights.
In an ambitious plan that stands to speed gentrification of the Brooklyn neighborhood, Common, a New York-based startup, is angling to convert more than a dozen residential buildings over the next year into shared-housing units.
The idea is to provide flexible housing options for on-the-go millennials whose work and study situations are increasingly fluid and unpredictable.
“Flexible” doesn’t necessarily mean “dirt cheap.” A single room in a Common suite that’s shared by five costs between $1,800 and $1,950 a month — about what it costs to rent a studio nearby.

So what’s the appeal? For one, all rooms are rented on a month-to-month basis, and requirements for income and documenting it are accordingly less onerous, says founder and CEO Brad Hargreaves.
“We’re a little more lenient than 40x,” Hargreaves told The Post, referring to the near-ubiquitous requirement for annual income that’s 40 times the monthly rent for a New York apartment.
Common isn’t the only startup looking to disrupt rental housing. Existing competitors include Krash and Pure House, and co-working behemoth WeWork is slated to launch WeLive this fall.
If the “co-living” model sounds like a cinch to mint money, it isn’t. In August, a Silicon Valley startup called Campus — the biggest shared-housing venture thus far — shuttered 30 spaces in San Francisco and four in New York.
While Campus rented its spaces in pricey neighborhoods like the Flatiron District, Common is partnering with investors that are buying its buildings outright. Clustering in still-affordable Crown Heights will provide further efficiencies while boosting property values, the company hopes.
Common adds that its leasing policy isn’t just numbers-driven.
While sifting through more than 250 applications for the 19 bedrooms at Common’s new building at 1162 Pacific St. that opened this past weekend, the firm weighed freelance sources of income. But the company also conducted in-person interviews to gauge applicants’ interest in its plans for weekly potluck dinners and local outreach.
“We’re looking at creating a vetted community,” Hargreaves says. “We’re targeting people who really want to be part of a community, rather than just looking for a transitional place to live.”
Vetting has already occurred for some applicants before they even apply: Many come from local, post-college professional training schools for skills like coding and languages. Among them is General Assembly, a New York-based education startup for tech, business and design that was co-founded in 2011 by Hargreaves.
“One of the needs we always saw our students had was for a flexible, community-driven housing option,” he said. “Many could go find a place in Craigslist and live in a basement in the East Village and pay $3,000 a month for that privilege. But we thought there had to be a better way.”
Bedrooms at Common’s new, four-story building, furnished by Crate & Barrel and Restoration Hardware, all have windows and range between 100 and 150 square feet. Each floor shares a kitchen, while bathrooms are shared by two bedrooms. Basic supplies and weekly cleaning services for common areas are included in the rent.
In July, Common raised $7.35 million from venture firms including Maveron and Lowercase Capital, headed by California tech tycoon Chris Sacca.
						