
Seattle’s micro-housing boom offers an affordable alternative - luu
http://www.seattletimes.com/pacific-nw-magazine/seattles-micro-housing-boom-offers-an-affordable-alternative/
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roymurdock
There are two forces at play here. The developers argue that dorm style living
(rebranded micro-housing) is the result of a new, anti-consumption mindset:

 _“People have different perspectives than our parents might have had. They
were geared to acquire as much stuff as you can. They buy a big house and fill
it up with as much stuff as they can. It’s a paradigm shift. Our generation is
not being geared to the acquisitional mindset. It’s more normal for us being
able to shift gears.”_

On the other hand, most residents seems to be there for economical reasons:
the average tenant only stays 12-14 months, and it seems dubious that anyone
(other than Steve Sauer) would enjoy living in a micro-housing unit for a long
time:

 _“I certainly don’t want to live this way forever,” she says, “but at this
point in my life, it makes it easier. I need to stay close to work, I need
free (street) parking, I need something affordable and just the convenience of
being in the city. A space like this allows me to be in the city without
breaking the bank.”_

Affordable housing is a big problem in a highly-regulated market with a lot of
money at stake. If these jail-density units continue to proliferate in and
around large cities, I fear that we are moving in the wrong direction. They
are good indicators of the number of people who are willing to live in a 200
sq. ft dorm room because a) all they do is work and sleep and b) they can't
afford the rent anywhere else. It's not a population of people we want to see
growing in the US.

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listic
I don't get it: what is "dorm style" here? What is communal exactly?

~~~
forrestthewoods
Imagine a building of ~60 180sqft apartments broken up into groups of ~6 where
each group has a single, shared kitchen. That would be a communal kitchen.
There might also be a communal living room. Specifics vary of course.

~~~
listic
ok; I didn't figure whether kitchen and anything else is shared, from the
site.

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netcan
This is interesting. It's the kind of topic that can easily be interpreted as
anyone into their pet big issue and/or worldview, dangerously so.

This could be about The Plight of The Middle class and the cost of housing.
Are we really returning to a world of boarding houses? It could be about a
less is more world where people are discarding processions, home and contents
and living a smaller, more environmental and simpler existence. It could be
about demographic and cultural shifts. More single people. It could be about
the decline of extended families, communities and multigenerational
households. The continued accession of cities…

Anyway, interesting.

Beyond anything else, I think this points at how much of any issue housing is
these days. Manufactures goods have dropped in prices for generations to the
point where looking back a few generations to a time when cutlery and
crockery, salt and other things were wealth is ridiculous. Transport has
improved more slowly. Air travel has certainly become a lot cheaper and
international travel has become more accessible over the years. So have
services like restaurants, gyms and lots of recreational goods. Information
has been revolutionized. But housing, it's not really improving with time.
We're not better off than our grandparents in many cases.

~~~
kiba
More like real estate. The amount of land is fixed, after all. And some are
more valuable than others.

Even the materials used to build houses had gotten cheaper, presumably.

Skyscrappers and high density housing can increase supply but only if
regulations and market conditions allow it.

~~~
Zigurd
Here is a list of cities by population density. They're not the ones you would
expect:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cities_by_population_d...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cities_by_population_density)

It is possible to have lo-rise, high-density. As for "regulations and market
conditions?" Everyplace has those.

~~~
umanwizard
That list doesn't tell us much, because what counts as the official city
limits is completely arbitrary.

There are some parts of London for example that are very suburban.

~~~
droidist2
Exactly. San Francisco is just twice the size of Manhattan and Houston is
about 200 times as big of an area.

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krschultz
It's kind of rediculous that the article ends with a picture of the apartment
building and it is barely 4 stories tall, and on either side are 2 story
suburban dwellings. Walk down any block of brownstones and in NYC and you'll
note even the 100+ year old brownstones are 5 stories tall. At that height you
still don't even need elevators or any of the other special systems that go
into tall buildings. The owner simply prices the 5th floor walk up at a lower
price, which actually turns out to be a win if your goal is affordability.

We're not suffering from a lack of space, just a lack of permissive zoning.

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Spooky23
There was no ADA in 1910.

IIRC, if you have more than 4 units, you need an elevator. Elevators cost a
fortune to install and represent a significant ongoing cost for a landlord.
Landlords avoid incurring costs at all costs.

Also, you need to incur more costs for things like fire escapes in taller
buildings, need to build to a higher standard, and have to figure out issues
like parking that get more complicated at higher density.

...Or you can just throw up some 4-story disposable building, milk it for
10-years, then offload it to another property manager who squeezes the pennies
out of the property.

The economics don't make sense, which is why they don't get built.

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saosebastiao
I live in an 8 floor building with two elevators that seem to break every
other week...and yet despite that ongoing expense, our total HOA fees are less
that $600/yr. That is half of what I pay for a parking spot that needs no
maintenance. Elevators aren't a ridiculous expense.

~~~
Spooky23
A two-stop hydraulic elevator costs about $70k, depending on where you are.
Maintenance is around $3k/year, plus about $500-900 in energy.

If it's being appropriately maintained, a traction elevator like what is in an
8-story building can cost 2-5x more in annual maintenance.

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humanrebar
An affordable alternative... for single people without families. You can
perform most of the basic functions of life, but reproduction is a major one,
too.

I'm not even sure you could design a space for a young family. Things change
so fast, you'd need a whole economy to support it. You'd need to _rent_ a lot
of things, like high chairs, cribs, extra linen storage, etc. because you
can't store anything in your home.

~~~
paganel
> An affordable alternative... for single people without families. You can
> perform most of the basic functions of life, but reproduction is a major
> one, too.

For what it's worth I've lived a very happy life as a kid in a 2-room
apartment, in about 70 sqm. Granted, I used to spend most of my time in front
of our apartments' block, playing with other kids. If it matters I grew up in
Eastern Europe.

What I wanted to say is that resorting to "but would someone think of the
children?" in this kind of situation in order to mask the harm done on the
environment because of McMansions and huge houses in general is the wrong way
to do it.

~~~
delecti
Just for reference, 70 sqm is about 750 sqft, where these are 200 sqft, or
less than 20 sqm. These are absolutely not sufficient for a family with
children, or likely even a single parent with a child.

Also, I live a 10 minute walk from this place, and pay 50% more for over 3
times the space, so they're not even that good of a deal.

~~~
BrianEatWorld
I don't think they're going for that market directly.

The housing market is connected though, so interest in these, which may be
limited to singles or couples without children, will remove some of the demand
on larger units, such as yours, which can house children and families.

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maxsilver
It's nice that more companies are building dorm rooms. But it would be great
if someone would build dense urban living for families too.

A lot of the growth of suburbs isn't necessarily due to people _wanting_ to
live there, but because it's the largest (and sometimes only) option for folks
with children.

They don't need to match suburban house sizes. Most people don't need
1800+sqft. But if we could start getting modest 3 and 4 bed urban condos with
1000-1300sqft, it would do a lot to improve things.

Incentivizing a huge chunk of the population out into far flung suburbs
doesn't seem smart from a efficiency, infrastructure, land use, or pollution
standpoint.

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umanwizard
> A lot of the growth of suburbs isn't necessarily due to people wanting to
> live there, but because it's literally the only option for folks with
> children.

How do you figure? Last I checked there are children in cities.

~~~
droidist2
Yeah but Americans are taught to think cities are scary and suburban sprawl is
safe, even though you're several times more likely to die in a car accident
than being murdered in a city, not to mention health problems in kids whose
primary exercise is walking to and from their parents' minivan.

~~~
ghaff
In all fairness, that wasn't a completely inaccurate generalization in the
1970s or so. That's changed a lot for the most part, but a number of effects
linger such as the quality of most urban public schools. Therefore, for a
variety of reasons--including having more space--many (though of course not
all) middle class+ families still are inclined to move to the suburbs when
they have children.

With respect to exercise, you'd have to convince me that kids living in a city
condo/apartment routinely get more exercise than ones in the suburbs.

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gamesbrainiac
In Japan, there is a similar idea called "Shared Houses". This kind of
reaction to the status quo means that we're solving the housing problem in the
wrong way. Instead of providing faster transportation mechanisms, we're
investing into places that are even more cramped.

As many have pointed out, a micro-house is unlikely to be good when you have a
family and children to raise.

~~~
shawnee_
Correct. People with only the basic gist of "Economics 101" fail to understand
that supply and demand economics _do not apply to the housing market_ the way
they do for consumer goods.

In a nutshell, hyper-inflation of rents in a metro area actually decreases the
rate at which new units are built. Landlords have incentive to keep supply
down; and when they do build "nice new" units for _rent_ , those rent prices
increase the average rents on the market.

In a sense, landlords are able to bully renters into being "customers" for
longer period of time. Harms middle-class housing in two ways:

    
    
      (1) larger portion of renters' income dumped into
      rent decreases ability to save for down-payment to buy
    
      (2) fewer people buying decreases rate at which new
      units are built, and thus never allows the "housing
      supply" to react to actual market realities.
    

And what causes hyperinflation in rents? People being unable to "save enough
money for a down payment" to buy.

Great documentary called "The Flaw" that explains more.

[edit] formatting

~~~
mrec
Completely with you on the general gist, but a few points:

1\. It's not just LLs who have an incentive to keep supply down; it's
homeowners too. And banks, and estate agents (realtors), and builders, and
media that relies on property advertising, and policians wanting votes and/or
donations from any of the above. Anyone with a vested interest in higher
prices has an incentive to constrain supply.

2\. I don't think reduced buying decreases new build directly; a lot (most) of
new-build here in London is being bought to rent (or even bought to leave
empty while waiting for capital gains). Supply constraints are coming from all
the people in point 1.

3\. Various countries have failed in various specifics, but I think the
overall driver for this worldwide is pretty clear: the Great Recession and
resulting drive to "zero interest rates forever". The ultimate encouragement
to take on ballooning mortgage debt, sending prices into the stratosphere and
drawing in speculators, while at the same time punishing most non-parasitic
forms of saving via financial repression.

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bluejellybean
I love the concept of micro-housing and have looked into micro-houses quite
extensively. The biggest issue with them is of course zoning laws and the only
easy way to actually live in one is to buy a plot of land way out in the
country.

If you want to live in a city cheaply, you're pretty much forced to have
roommates. That's fine but roommates are not always great and personally I
would much rather live on my own. So what are the options? Well, the cheapest
studio I could find in my area (Ann Arbor, MI) that is within a 10-15 minute
to downtown (as my current place is) is almost double what I'm paying
currently for a bedroom in a shared house. Ridiculous!

As a young 20 something, I don't have a family, I don't need space. When I'm
home, I'm at my desk or sleeping. I view a city in the same way as a phone
being an extension of your brain, the city is an extension of your home. If I
need a bunch of space, there are plenty of places I can go to get that.

Is micro-housing and super dense living for everyone? Of course not! But for
many young people, it's pretty damn great to have an affordable to sleep.
Build 'em high, build 'em dense.

~~~
Spooky23
The reason that "evil zoning" makes building crap like this hard to build is
because the long game for property like this is that it devolves into a
flophouse.

When time rolls on and the six-figure people embracing dorm life gets old, or
the workers are "disrupted" into low-paying gigs, this type of housing will
turn into typical SRO housing in the US -- people on public assistance with
nowhere else to go.

~~~
skybrian
So even if the experiment fails, the housing will still be used. It seems
rather efficient to me. They have to live somewhere right?

~~~
Spooky23
Very efficient, as long as they aren't next door to you!

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listic
Looks like a regular flat to me. Has America just discovered flats? Can't see
any _floor plans_ under "floor plans":
[http://www.thealderflats.com/floorplans.aspx](http://www.thealderflats.com/floorplans.aspx)

~~~
cmdkeen
200 sq ft is considered small in Europe but still on a scale that IKEA has an
example flat in that size.

You're not going to want to live there forever as your main property, but then
they might discover the concept of a pied a terre...

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Futurebot
As someone who lives in an actual 1900s tenement that costs twice what these
do without any of the amenities, I'd be happy to live in one of those for
$1000/month if they were in Lower Manhattan or West Brooklyn.

For those who value location and low cost, these would be amazing. For
reference, the micro-apartment experiment we have here:

"Enter My Micro NY, the city's first micro-apartment complex, at 335 East 27th
Street, with 55 units ranging from 260 to 360 square feet. The building will
begin leasing studios this summer for around $2,000 to $3,000 a month"

The same price as non-microapartments in the studio-1BR range.

[http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/22/realestate/micro-
apartment...](http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/22/realestate/micro-apartments-
tiny-homes-prefabricated-in-brooklyn.html)

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coldcode
Sad that a good idea was immediately killed for the future.

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tomcam
Didn't these used to be called tenements? Not trying to be snarky.

~~~
roymurdock
_Some neighborhoods fought the projects — theirs and others — likening them to
early 1900 tenements. Judgments abounded: one online magazine referred to them
as “hipster hovels,” while others likened their size to prison cells, parking
stalls and carports.

None of it stopped people from moving in.

“It’s satisfying,” says Carr, “and we realize we’re meeting a big, pent-up
demand.”_

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tedmiston
Our local startup accelerator, The Brandery, did a related experiment a few
months ago.

They paid the master lease to an apartment building and sublet to founders on
favorable short-term contracts and with a slight discount [1]. I'm hoping to
see more of this communal housing model with other accelerators.

I didn't get a chance to see the Y Scraper [2], but perhaps that concept was
similar.

1: [http://weare.techohio.ohio.gov/2015/06/19/welcome-home-
otrs-...](http://weare.techohio.ohio.gov/2015/06/19/welcome-home-otrs-
branderyhaus-offers-affordable-living-to-entrepreneurs/)

2: [https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-Y-scraper](https://www.quora.com/What-
is-the-Y-scraper)

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backtoyoujim
Affordable housing persons maybe can't afford most of the furniture in those
interior photographs.

~~~
zardo
It's not just poor people who want low cost living. You don't get rich by
spending money.

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HeyLaughingBoy
You do, but you have to spend it on the right things...

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pessimizer
Seattle’s hipster SRO boom offers an affordable alternative to homelessness.

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Avshalom
So is this just an article saying people are still living in efficiencies?

