
Test Driving New York City's New Micro Apartments - e15ctr0n
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/12/realestate/testing-the-first-micro-apartments-in-new-york-city.html
======
iLoch
So, I lived in a micro apartment last year in Vancouver. Newly renovated like
the one in this video, albeit with less features (no dishwasher or multi-
purpose furniture.) The apartment shown in this video is a _luxurious_
300sqft. My "apartment" was smaller than this.

While the space is acceptable, technically, to live in - I can't recommend it
if you have the choice of a larger place. These sorts of places typically
feature high ceilings, which is nice, but that's about all they have going for
them.

For me, coming home felt more like arriving at a hotel. With everything so
tightly packed, there was a constant need to pack things away and shuffle
items around. It's hard to feel at home when you can barely even (and possibly
even not at all!) fit your own furniture in your place.

Murphy beds seem like a fun idea, but unless you're entertaining guests you'll
end up just leaving it down during the day (if you're like me, that is..) You
then come home to what is essentially a bedroom.

I won't dispute this is a better living situation than many people currently
have, but given the price tag of these apartments (I paid over $1000/mo here,
$2500-3000 in Murray Hill for 300sqft???) I would advise finding somewhere
else to live. Somewhere that has a doorway to walk through that separates your
living spaces.

~~~
nine_k
I think the whole point is being very close to whatever is attractive in
Manhattan, at a price of both serious rent _and_ small area. A very similar
situation there is in Tokyo: young professionals rent microscopic apartments
close to work and the downtown founts of intense social life, and only use
them as sleeping pads.

Otherwise, Brooklyn and Queens offer much more cost-effective, well-connected,
entirely urban neighborhoods, maybe not as dense but still perfectly walkable,
bikable, and equipped with subway. The cost is, of course, 20-40 more minutes
to/from Manhattan.

~~~
patio11
_A very similar situation there is in Tokyo: young professionals rent
microscopic apartments close to work and the downtown founts of intense social
life, and only use them as sleeping pads._

In Tokyo, this apartment fits reasonably cleanly in the 1DK category ([1]
room, dedicated [d]ining/[k]itchen space). It's bog standard. Prices, even in
the most desirable neighborhoods, would be a lot closer to $1k than to $3k,
and generally coming from the downside.

~~~
minikomi
From what I can see in the video, it seems to fall more into the 1K category -
a single room with a kitchen - making this even more pricy! 1DK tends to have
two separate rooms, one of which can be quite small. Agreed on the price - a
quick search for 1K or 1DK apartments in the most expensive ward in Japan
shows that only even the most spacious apartments ever go over that range:

1K :
[http://madori.chintai.net/1k/tokyo/area/13103/o=3/](http://madori.chintai.net/1k/tokyo/area/13103/o=3/)

1DK:
[http://madori.chintai.net/1dk/tokyo/area/13103/o=3/](http://madori.chintai.net/1dk/tokyo/area/13103/o=3/)

~~~
level3
Indeed, I previously lived in a 2LDK in a very nice tower mansion in that ward
(in Shibaura, near Mita Station), and that was around 700sqft for under $2500.
I was sharing with a friend (so my rent was only half that) but it was
amazingly comfortable.

My current place is a 1DK, slightly smaller than the apartment in the article,
but even that feels big for one person. In any case, after living in Tokyo, I
find it hard to describe a 300sqft apartment as "tiny."

------
sologoub
If they are serious about space efficiency, they should look at layouts
Soviets developed to "warehouse" their citizen in - no luxury, but it really
worked magic with efficiency.

I grew up in 33 m^2 apartment. Layout is similar to this, minus the balcony:
[http://cdn.gdeetotdom.ru/b/b9f1203ec7061e6dc65984ff104ecfb7-...](http://cdn.gdeetotdom.ru/b/b9f1203ec7061e6dc65984ff104ecfb7-cb300x198.jpeg)

The major difference is that you have a separation of space with the kitchen
and hallway (with closets). That separation made it fairly livable for a
family with a child! (Don't recommend stuffing a teenager in there, but it has
been done...)

The completely open studio layout will likely not be great even for a couple,
as sometimes your really do need space or privacy. A blocked off kitchen
affords that and doubles as a decent home office.

I don't recall us resorting to space-efficient furniture, but then again
Soviet furniture was smaller already and I did sleep on a foldout couch.

For entertaining, that tiny kitchen actually fit 5-6 people reasonably well. I
think our informal record was 14 (3 standing, rest comfortably seating).

The kitchen became such a part of the culture as a place to sit down and talk
privately, that there have been articles and books written about it. It really
highlights the genius utility of that small extra space. Unfortunately, all I
could find in English is a really terrible NPR article that shows a place
you'd need a hasmat suit to enter as a "typical" Russian kitchen... Still the
utility is amazing!

EDIT: as discussed below, Tokyo calls such layout 1DK (with 2 rooms
effectively, 2nd being the kitchen). These are much more desirable than the 1K
true studio apartments.

~~~
gambiting
I was just about to comment, that this "apartment" is pretty much identical in
size and layout to an apartment my parents got from the communist government
of Poland in the 70s. It was small, but at least it was free - is $2400/month
a common price in New York? I currently live in UK and pay $900/month for a
detached 3 bedroom house, $2400/month is more than I make a month as a c++
programmer - just seems very very high to me.

Edit: I do make more than $2400/month, I fudged the conversion rate

~~~
visarga
For people working remote, move to Bucharest. It's not just a little cheaper -
it's 10x cheaper! 420$/mo (Bu) instead of 4600$/mo for two rooms in NY. Check
it out here at the bottom of the list:

[http://ceoworld.biz/2015/10/19/top-50-most-expensive-
cities-...](http://ceoworld.biz/2015/10/19/top-50-most-expensive-cities-in-
the-world-to-rent-an-apartment-2015-report)

Internet speeds are great and it only costs 10$/month to get 1gbps (probably
just 100mbs external, 1gbps metropolitan). Americans are well regarded by
everyone, especially girls :-)

~~~
stevoski
What are the negatives of living and working in Bucharest as a foreigner?

~~~
visarga
Bucharest has bad traffic congestion, but that's only a problem if you commute
to work during rush hour. If you work remote, you don't need to worry about
it.

Another negative is bureaucracy. The system is overly complex, stupid
sometimes. If you need to open a company or get hired locally it can be a
PITA.

Young people can speak English, some quite well. But older people don't.

------
rayiner
These are stupid. Carmel Place is in Murray Hill. That neighborhood has many
normal sized (450-500 square foot) studios in the $2,500 range. Not like gross
old units either, nicely renovated ones.

~~~
TillE
Yeah, I was shocked by the price. You're paying roughly normal Manhattan
studio apartment rent for half the square footage. I don't get it.

~~~
jonknee
It's not a normal studio, it's furnished and sounds quite luxe despite the
size:

> Carmel Place’s rent includes not just internet and Wi-Fi, but a weekly
> tidying service and a monthly deep clean, along with dog walking, dry
> cleaning pickup and any number of customized errands through an app called
> Hello Alfred, all organized by Ollie.

~~~
home_boi
They've got the demographics all confused.

Are they in the cheap, low end or luxury high end industry?

People who want those amenities are in the luxury market. They want a much
bigger apartment.

The people who want a 300 ft studio are in the cheap market. They don't care
about these amenities.

~~~
wastedhours
I don't think that they've missed the demographics - surely those amenities
are in-keeping with a young professional market? As in, small space, nicely
outfitted and time saving extras - considering they'd be working long hours
and going out to socialise, seems well suited?

------
iamdave
_While the lion’s share — 32 — of the units are market rate, with monthly
rents ranging from $2,446 to $3,195, eight have been set aside for formerly
homeless veterans, and 14 units are designated affordable, with monthly rents
from $914 to $1,873, and for which 60,000 people applied in a lottery._

Is it just odd word choice or does "formerly homeless" mean they're put up
somewhere until these are ready to lease? Also, do these homeless vets have
work? Or am I misreading this paragraph entirely?

This isn't any sort of indictment on the homeless population...just, $914 for
something of that size is affordable pretty much only by New York (and I guess
SF) standards, and I wonder if instead of putting a dent (maybe even a
scratch) in some of the problems that creates chronic homelessness, if this is
just cycling through a series of "guests" who stay for maybe months at a time
and end right back up on the street.

I suppose I have to take the article at its word: "It's a start".

~~~
bradleyjg
The 8 homeless vet units are separate from the 14 affordable units, and are
probably being paid for by some combination of federal, state, and city
dollars. The affordable units were awarded by lottery open to anyone meeting
the income guidelines.

Also in official NYC-government-speak homeless doesn't necessarily mean living
on the street. It means a lack of "secure, adequate, and permanent" housing.
So it includes situations like living in a shelter or in a doubled up
situation (e.g. on a relative's couch).

~~~
iamdave
Both very good things to know. Thanks for clearing up.

------
minikomi
This is more roomy than many of my friend's apartments here in Tokyo.
Different circumstances, I know, but just some perspective.

------
teslaberry
i lived in a 140 square foot apartment in new york which had formerly been a
single room occupancy built over 100 years ago.

small tenement like housing is nothing new.

small apartments slowly create cabin fever-------ANXIETY.

if you live in a small space you must spend a lot more time outside of it than
inside of a normal sized space.

also, it is vital to have minimum 9 foot high cielings for a small space. i
had 8 foot ceilings that are standard in new york.

finally, a loft in a room with lower than 10 foot cielings means you cannot
have a 5'10 foot person stand comfortably underneath the loft and have a 5'10
foot person on their knees in bed on top of the loft without one of them
hitting their head on the underside of either the celiing or the bottom of the
loft.

furthermore, a loft gets very hot in the summer and remains somewhat warmer
than the floor in the winter. this effect increases inversely with measure of
distance between the loft surface to the cieling

------
wwwdonohue
> It’s also adorable, a compressed vision of the city in both ethos and mien.

Imagine a "groovy millennial" Instagrammming a vegan cheesecake -- forever. I
appreciate the job the NYT Real Estate section does. Without them (and Style)
the newspaper probably would no longer exist. But articles like this are so
devoid of reality that I understand why everyone thinks people are crazy to
live in New York City.

~~~
chrisseaton
In what sense is this article devoid of reality?

This is a real apartment, really available to lease.

------
carlob
I have a friend in Paris who lives with his wife in 33 m^2 (355 sqft). Their
apartment is not even technically a studio, but rather a 1BR, they routinely
host dinner parties with up to 8-10 people. I've also heard people compliment
them on the size of the apartment, they probably lived in places of about half
the surface.

------
baddox
Oh, that's a "micro apartment?" It looks the same size as my San Francisco
Soma apartment, or perhaps slightly larger. I don't have any of the fancy
specialized furniture either, so my queen sized bed, wardrobe, and desk take
up most of the room.

------
dagw
_" If groovy millennials are all about cooking and Instagramming the vegan
cheesecakes they are making,” she said later, "how do you live that life with
a two-burner stove?"_

I take it this person doesn't cook. My first apartment (which was quite a bit
smaller than this apparent) came with a two burner stove and no oven. With
those two burners, a rice cooker and the small toaster style oven I bought, I
quite comfortable cooked just about anything you'd care mention.

------
seanmcdirmid
I lived in an apartment smaller than this in Lausanne Switzerland. This seems
like luxury in comparison (granted, mine only cost 800 CHF in rent but...).

------
KKKKkkkk1
> “New York has long been a leader in social innovation,” Mr. Klinenberg said.
> “The trend of living alone happened here before anywhere else.”

I don't understand. Check Bay Area Craigslist and you will find that a rich
selection of small studios is available for rent on any given day. And they're
much more affordable than the one in this article too.

~~~
srtjstjsj
"Living alone" is more "social collapse" than "social innovation". But New
York has long been a leader in social collapse.

------
barking
I live in a rural location.

I could not financially afford that micro apartment but I consider the people
who live in it far worse off than me.

~~~
eru
Depends on how much you value living in New York City.

~~~
barking
That's true, I'm not the most sociable of people and a lot of what makes
cities attractive is wasted on me. When I moved to the country it was the
libraries and the bookshops I missed. Today with broadband and amazon, I don't
miss those either.

------
chrismbarr
As a non New Yorker that price for the square footage is astronomical to me! I
live in a small rural town in Georgia and I pay $890 a month to rent a 1618 sq
foot house (+ a large front porch). The house is over 100 years old and it for
sure has it's quirks, but for the price it's great. I can live in this house
for 3-4 months for the cost of 1 month in that apartment which is about 1/5th
the size!

I know that New York salaries are typically higher to compensate, but I work
remote for a company as a front-end designer/dev and make a good living
without having to pay "big city" prices. I get the appeal of living in a big
with though, Atlanta is near by and I love visiting; but I greatly prefer
saving my money and/or spending it on things other than expensive rent.

~~~
cauterized
Nah, that price per square foot is pretty high even by NYC standards (almost
double what's typical for that neighborhood, which is expensive fore city as a
whole but middle-high for Manhattan).

And one of the things you learn here pretty quickly is that you don't REALLY
need all that much space. My first apartment was about 300 sqft, and a third
of it went entirely unused. My current studio is probably 450, and while I
have a ton more stuff now than I did then, the amount of space is more than
adequate. I wouldn't know what to do with 1600 sqft even with a spouse and
kids! Oh, and costs about 2/3 as much as that apartment, in an arguably nicer
neighborhood in Brooklyn. /shrug

We each have our own priorities for what we're willing to pay for.

------
dsfyu404ed
Why is this a big deal?

The mobile home and RV industries solved the problem of maximizing available
space decades ago. The space spend on propane tanks, water heaters, and other
utilities that are no needed at an apartment level can be repurposed having
larger hardware in the kitchen and bathroom.

I know it's bad marketing to say "we modify off the shelf manufactured home
floor plans to better fit an apartment use case" but that's exactly what
micro-apartments are. The same tricks just get applied in a different context.

Living in a trailer isn't noteworthy but living in a 3 dimensional trailer
park is? Well at least some writer made a buck off of writing about it.

~~~
VLM
>Living in a trailer isn't noteworthy

It isn't cool. That's the problem. I listen to a podcast about a week ago
(sorry forget all the details) on the general topic of how do you sell mobile
home materials and economics and lifestyle to people who don't think mobile
homes are "cool" especially not for "the cool people". Well, change the name,
call it a tiny house or tiny apartment, all done.

There is an interesting economic side issue. Because bubbles are bubbles we
can assume real estate will go up 5% per year into infinity, right? That
solves the classic problem with RV / mobile home trailer parks where the
materials are not built to last more than a couple years... wait for real
estate bubble appreciation to build up for five years, cash out refinance,
then gut and remodel. Doesn't matter if nothing in there will last more than
10 years if the business model is to gut and remodel every 5... Of course if
the financial situation changes and prices can't go up 5% annually in
perpetuity, then imagine what the place will look like in 20, 30 years.

------
castratikron
Negative, I am a meat popsicle.

~~~
jonathantm
something something multipass

------
woodpanel
It's a downer to me, that despite the stated aim of "keeping housing
affordable", prices of such apartments will usually default to "still eating
most of the household's income".

Is this proof for too much or too less government intervention? Or is the
usual increase in price caused by the new micro-renters themselves, in that
they are increasing attractiveness of the area?

I think it's most likely just that: We're bad savers and not being in the red
at the end of the month will turn off the biggest behavioral signal for
switching expenditure habits.

~~~
redwood
I think when folks focus on the price point of _new_ construction being high,
they're missing the bigger picture: These kinds of new units put downward
price pressure on whatever was previously "lower on the totem pole". In other
words, those studios in Murray Hill without a door man / elevator which were
already priced below this price point will become even less luxurious looking
as these are built.. that means that "regular folks" who don't care to live in
these shiny shoe boxes prosper!

~~~
dsfyu404ed
What your describing happened in the used car market c4c caused a panic that
put the price floor of the bottom of the used car market in a place it
couldn't have naturally got itself to. This put upward pressure on the entire
market. It became much more profitable to have a bunch of higher end used
(CPO, certified pre owned) cars lying around to sell. To churn those out
better leases became more available. At the same time it became harder to
write a housing loan that would obviously flop. Banks started writing more bad
new car loans. The incentive to do so being that if it defaults soon enough
the car will get repo'd, auctioned and bought by a dealer to be sold as
certified pre owned and the loan is in the black at the end of it all. Go look
at the average prices for various new/used vehicle categories and you'll see
an upward trend everywhere.

Allowing any part of the market to go upward in price puts upward pressure on
the rest of the market because there's now more competition for whatever
hasn't become out of reach.

Housing, transportation, education and a few others are necessities that
pretty much everyone needs the same amount of. Until you saturate the entire
market in an area with high end stuff to the point where the price of the high
end stuff decreases dramatically the price of low end stuff will rise. It's
really hard to saturate the housing market with expensive and new because no
developer will build more nice expensive stuff when there's a larger profit
margin building cheaper low end stuff that's been driven up in price by all
the high end stuff.

------
kafkaesq
In a nutshell: they're re-inventing what was once a vast and thriving
community (since substantially eviscerated) of what was were once widely
known, amongst anybody above a certain age, as Single-Room Occupancy
dwellings:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_room_occupancy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_room_occupancy)

except now market-rate (natch!), and with decidedly cheesier architecture.

------
varjag
The problem with multi-functional, stowaway etc furniture is it tends to fall
apart pretty quick with daily use. In couple of years you'll have issues with
engaging that table's feet in unfolded position, that neat wardrobe hanger
will fall out on you when you open doors and so on. And it's not really a huge
choice with this kind of furniture to replace.

~~~
Brakenshire
The table looked very awkward. I actually previously had a solid wood IKEA
table with two folding leaves and storage space in between, which cost about
£200, and looked a lot more usable (and attractive) than that table.
Admittedly you could only get 6 people round it rather than 8/10\. But then
again, it didn't cost £3000.

------
cannonpr
Seems like a very poor approach to space efficiency if compared to something
like this [http://www.homedsgn.com/2011/05/07/a-tiny-apartment-in-
hong-...](http://www.homedsgn.com/2011/05/07/a-tiny-apartment-in-hong-kong-
transforms-into-24-rooms/)

------
Steeeve
New? I remember 300 square foot places for absurd money back in the 90s. How
small/expensive are they getting exactly?

------
smackfu
That expanding table is around four grand.

~~~
michael_h
From the mouseovers in the graphic:

    
    
      * Wall bed: $7,780 
      * Coffee table: $1,450
      * Expanding table: $4,165
      * Folding chairs: $250/each ($1,000)

------
erikb
3200? Did she say the cost for that apartment is 3200? First I thought I heard
320. That would be okay. It's the size of a university dorm room (at least
where I live). 320 is an okay price for that. But 3200? There are a lot of
places on that planet where you can rent a villa for less, a lot less.

~~~
geofft
Yes, but the goal of building housing in New York City is for that housing to
be in New York City, not anywhere else on the planet.

~~~
erikb
You are aware that most people on this planet, even in highly developed
countries, earn less pre tax than $3200, right?

~~~
geofft
Yes. Again, the goal here is building housing in Manhattan, not building
housing for highly developed countries in general.

People who aren't familiar with New York City (especially people whose
impression of housing is influenced by San Francisco) may not realize that the
city has a generally-competent public transit infrastructure, making is
possible to work in Manhattan without living in Manhattan or even in New York
City and without hating your life. Of course, housing in the outer boroughs
and in nearby cities is _also_ expensive compared to, say, housing in a small
university town somewhere in the Midwest. But this project is specifically
about increasing the density of housing in Manhattan itself, which will
hopefully let demand from people who can pay $3200/month shift away from the
outer boroughs and nearby cities.

~~~
erikb
You are right that my confusion is about the squaremeter price in NYC in
general, not in this project specifically. That is exactly my point. I don't
want to bring any other point. Why are we still arguing about this point?

------
NTripleOne
This is like twice the size of the studio flat I rented while at university...

------
drivingmenuts
I made it about a minute and couldn't take the reporter anymore - if you're
going to do video, try to hire someone with more life than a dead carpet to do
the speaking part.

While she may be a fine writer, clearly, she isn't a presenter for video.

~~~
dang
Please stop posting uncivil and unsubstantive comments to Hacker News.

------
lewisl9029
Completely off-topic, but I'm curious what websites/services people here like
to use to find a place for rent in the SF Bay Area.

~~~
shlant
Even though we found our place on craigslist, be aware that 90% of postings
are scams. In the City, you really need to remember the phrase "if it's too
good to be true, it probably is".

~~~
KKKKkkkk1
I rented three times off Craigslist and have not had any trouble. I did
respond to a couple of the ads that were "too good to be true" just for the
heck of it. The poster came back with a request to wire them money, which was
pretty obviously a scam. I wouldn't rent without seeing the place first so
this was not a problem anyway. But if you're trying to rent sight-unseen, then
you probably should use a service with more serious vetting.

------
branchless
“If groovy millennials are all about cooking and Instagramming the vegan
cheesecakes they are making,” she said later, “how do you live that life with
a two-burner stove?”

Thanks for the stereotype, but I think we just want the right to keep our
labour, not hand part of it over to the boomers and part to the banks, thanks.

"Perhaps this apartment is too good, too soft, for the demographic it purports
to address. How will they mature in a friction-free environment? It irritated
me that a 25-year-old would soon be lolling in my bed"

Really amazing. Such a soft option living in a cupboard and paying a fortune
for it, or a fortune for other alternatives.

