

The 160sq ft apartment - olegious
http://www.berkeleyside.com/2012/03/08/berkeley-developer-sees-future-in-small-smart-apartments/

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pwthornton
I don't think the market will bear that price. In NYC or DC the market
wouldn't bear that price. And frankly Berkeley, while nice, is no SF, NYC or
DC.

The concept of this place isn't bad. Many will decry the lack of space, but
the concept is just a place to sleep and get ready in the morning. If the
price were right (say $500 or so), it could be a nice way to live in a great
part of town without spending a ton of money. One of the joys of urban living
is that the city is your extra rooms. You don't need thousands of square feet
and a huge yard.

And if this place were $500 or so, you would have plenty of cash to go out and
enjoy the city on a daily basis. But at $1,600 a month, only someone with a
lot of money could afford to live there and enjoy the city a lot, which I
think defeats the purpose of this kind of living arrangement. $1,600 would get
you at least a studio in a very nice part of DC.

100 years ago, it was common for people to live in apartments that didn't have
kitchens. You ate in the cafe on the first floor of your building. You could
get away with a much smaller place by living this way. I think the concept
makes a lot of sense still for people who don't want to take care of a home,
but the price has to be right.

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Eliezer
At $2/sqft, people would be snapping these up by the dozens just for crash
space. At $10/sqft it's a ludicrously bad deal. This seems so obviously doomed
that I wonder if the article is a misprint.

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bane
Particularly considering that one of the main marketing thrusts is how cheap
these places are to build. It's be hard not to feel like your getting shafted
at $1600/mo.

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mixmax
They could learn a lot from boating.

I live on a boat, and coincidentally I have 160 sq. Ft. of indoor living area.

In that space I have a functional kitchen w. Fridge, oven, cookers, freezer,
microwave etc. A bathroom, a table where 8 people can sit and eat, bedroom,
two chaiselongs, two guest beds, an office, cupboards and storage. And of
course an engine and a steering console - which I presume isn't of much use in
a normal apartment.

I can also change the view out the window if don't like the current one. :-)

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FreeFull
Isn't boating quite a lot cheaper than conventional housing too.

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mixmax
In my case I paid around $36.000 for the boat, and I pay on average $300 a
month for mooring, electricity and heating. A small apartment in Copenhagen,
which is where I live, is around $300.000.

So yes, it's a lot cheaper. Also a lot more fun.

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fennecfoxen
"The San Francisco units will rent for $1,595 a month." Even in this property
market, even downtown, that's just ridiculous for a dinky 160 square feet.
Even furnished.

"a reconfigured bathroom and the addition of a washer/drier." Only 160 square
feet and you install a washer/drier instead of in-building laundry or a
laundromat up the street? That's not really the epitome of "sustainable" /
"urban infill" either.

"It’s a regulatory thicket in San Francisco." Yes. It's true. We suck.

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grayrest
> The San Francisco units will rent for $1,595 a month.

I was wondering about this pricing. I pay the same amount for a 850 square
foot apartment in Upper East Side Manhattan (83rd and 1st so a 10 minute walk
from the 4/5/6 but still...). I started reading with the thought "I'd pay
~$800 for that if it was decently located".

I split an apartment in Cole Valley SF in 2006-7 and think we were at ~$1800
for a two bedroom but it was a pretty crappy apartment for the area.

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Drbble
That's half the price of every similar Manhattan apartment I have seen. That
is a DC price, not an Upper East Side price. Long term rent control?

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grayrest
It's a small/non-doorman building and I got it in late 2009 and the landlord
had just remodeled, had a number of vacancies in the building (coincidence,
not a building problem) and really wanted to rent it. I got a good deal on it
but I've talked to other people in the area with similar apartments in the
$1800-1900 range. If I were closer to Central Park or the river, the price
goes way up.

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Drbble
Or when the new 2nd Ave subway is finished...

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grayrest
Thought has occurred to me but I'm looking forward to this! Will be neat to be
able to go from home to work without actually walking a full block at either
end.

Pretty sure one of the 86th street entrances is coming up on my block because
they dug a ~40 foot deep hole and have a giant white truss sitting on my
corner.

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mkramlich
I would not have minded living in such small of a space in the past. With two
big caveats. Based on actual experience, I've found the two biggest problems
living in apartments -- well, sharing walls/floors/ceilings with strangers,
anyway -- is the noisey neighbors phenomenon, and the smoking/non-smoking
thing. No matter what the official policy is on noise, there will be that guy
who decides to operate what sounds like a jackhammer at midnight, on a work
night. Or you'll be in an absolutely non-smoking building, floor, apartment,
etc. and yet this mysterious cigarette smoke will come out of the ventilation
system.

Providing a small living space? Not that hard of a problem.

Solving the rude neighbors problem and/or totally insulating/mitigating it?
Harder. (Still not impossible, in my judgment.)

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pwthornton
Sound insulation isn't that difficult, it just costs money, and it's one of
the easiest places to cut corners. When people are looking at an apartment
they look to see how the kitchen is, if it has hardwood floors, a balcony,
etc. No one asks, "how is the sound insulation," but they should.

Municipalities would be doing civilization a huge favor if they upped the
minimum sound insulation requirements for apartment/condo buildings.

Some neighbors are just plain rude and in their own world, but a lot of the
issues that buildings can have are from poor materials.

The good news is that it's pretty cheap to throw down extra foam insulation
under the floor to mitigate noise issues. But don't expect builders to do it.

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jedberg
There is nowhere in Berkeley that close to the Bay Bridge. In fact, that has
to have been taken in San Francisco, so the caption is clearly wrong.

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fennecfoxen
The author refers to a 'trompe l'oeil' view:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trompe-l%27oeil>

Trompe-l'œil, which can also be spelled without the hyphen in English as
trompe l'oeil,[1] (French for 'deceive the eye', pronounced [tʁɔ̃p lœj]) is an
art technique involving extremely realistic imagery in order to create the
optical illusion that the depicted objects appear in three dimensions.

(edit: HN doesn't like the ' in a link)

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jedberg
Ah, I should have actually looked up what that meant, and my question would
have been answered. Thanks fennecfoxen.

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cpeterso
The view is probably fake to hide the building's (as the article puts it)
"top-secret location."

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ChuckMcM
I find these things interestingly creative, I've got a 'class B' motorhome
(basically a full size van with stuff retro-fitted into it) and it's quite
livable for one person.

I totally agree the $1600 seems out of line, but cities are really conflicted
about low cost housing. There are many ways that such places could allow
housing more people who are between homeless for chemical/physical reasons and
just below the "food" + "housing" level.

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eplanit
Apartments of this size are typical in Japan, and also do not come at a
reduced cost. There, however, one can buy miniaturized appliances
(refrigerators, dishwashers, laundry) which do not cause one to sacrifice
having those 'luxuries'.

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evoxed
Are you in Tokyo? Space is prized but at this size even in Yokohama, living
out of a hotel room downtown cost barely more than these apartments. And that
was before I caught on to all the 50000/mo ALT-havens...

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FelixP
Forgive my ignorance, but it's been a while since I was in Tokyo. What's an
ALT-haven? Is that like a residential version of a capsule hotel?

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evoxed
Hah no no, ALT as in Assistant Language Teacher. The go-to "career" to anyone
who speaks English (or any European language as well I suppose) and has no
other reputable skills (okay fine... experience) to immigrate to Japan.

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sukuriant
In Redmond, $1100 buys you something like 1000 square feet (2 bedroom). $1500
for 700 REALLY nice square feet. I'm sorry, but no. 1500$ a month for a micro-
studio is completely unacceptable. Even, I imagine, in the Bay Area. What's
really insulting is that at 160 square feet and some good sound proofing, you
can have 3 or 4 of those places in the space I have my 1. That means they'd be
making 6000$ a month on people. I think I know where the price really comes
from.

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pwthornton
Isn't Redmond largely suburban? I don't think the two compare.

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akurilin
You're correct, there's plenty of space and they're continuously building new
apt complexes. My old apt was 1300sqft for something like 1500/mo with 2
garage spots. It's a completely different situation compared to SF.

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pwthornton
What are the apt complexes like? Can you walk to stuff? Are the buildings
mixed-use with businesses on the first floor?

In most of the country, zoning prohibited mixed-use zoning for much of the
20th century. It was a huge mistake that only be unraveled now. The side
effect of that is that areas with good mixed-use and walkability are really
expensive. This is a large reason that places like NYC and SF are so
expensive, especially the areas with mixed-use zoning.

New mixed-use housing stock isn't coming online fast enough and the Bay Area
in particular is very anti-desnity, despite the fact that they need it.
Restrict growth, particularly growth with height, and you'll have expensive
rents and housing prices.

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sukuriant
The 1500 for 700 square feet is right in the middle of town and has a
restaurant on the bottom of one of the buildings. Red 160 is its name.

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pasbesoin
Soundproofing. I don't need a lot of space, but I do _need peace and quiet_.

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shingen
I thought it looked like a great concept for someone in their early 20's, just
starting out, that didn't need much space. Somewhere I'd have been willing to
live at 22, while trying to start a company on a shoe string.

Then I saw the price. Hopefully the market teaches them a lesson.

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mey
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capsule_hotel>

