Greetings HN, Jon Dishotsky, CEO and cofounder of Starcity here. Thanks for all your feedback. A few notes that I thought I would share with you all.
Starcity's mission is to make great cities accessible to everyone. We're only a little over 3 years old but have made a lot of progress. Let me set the stage a little bit.
There is a sinister problem permeating great cities in the world — increasingly expensive housing costs, and it begins and ends with a lack of will. Politicians, developers, and banks are content with the status quo where economic growth and quality of life are bled out of residents by ever-increasing rents.
But it’s renters that suffer the most from this lack of will, and they’re being pushed further and further away from urban centers — away from culture, job opportunities, and easy access to amenities.
First, a few key facts to keep in mind:
- 7 million new renters enter the market to find housing every decade in the United States and spend $1.1T annually on apartment housing
- Apartment living was the fastest-growing segment of the housing market over the last decade
- 43% of apartment dwellers live in multi-family developments in urban settings, which translates to 35 million urban renters
Why are these facts important? Because, unfortunately for renters, inflation-adjusted rents have increased by 64% since 1960, while real incomes have not kept pace.
This pushes renters into stressful situations such as:
1. Commuting longer distances to areas where housing supply is less expensive
2. Moving into buildings that aim to fit more residents into the existing housing supply at a higher density and lower comfort
3. Apply to a lottery system for subsidized housing where the chances of getting affordable housing is similar to winning the lottery
4. Paying 50-60% of their income toward housing costs in an expensive modern high-rise
5. Playing craigslist sublease roulette where they don’t know what kinds of roommates they’ll get
Consumers want modern, on-demand, community-oriented housing products in urban settings, but housing supply isn’t able to keep up with demand, and hotels aren’t a viable long-term option.
Developers point to the inflexibility of banks and extensive regulation as reasons why 99% of new developments have the same format and little in the way of community. Regions like the San Francisco Bay Area and the boroughs of New York City would have to build supply at peak capacity for 50 years to create a meaningful reduction in costs for renters.
But, because of the lack of innovation by housing developers, there are only two methods of creating affordable housing:
A. Build expensive housing supply that becomes inexpensive over a significant time
B. Subsidize expensive housing supply
This is where Starcity comes in. We’re building a new category of real estate called coliving. In fact, this built form has not been created before, so much so that we worked with San Jose to create a new coliving designation that's separate from hotel, dormitories, and housing (https://www.bisnow.com/national/news/multifamily/why-san-jos...).
Designed to make great cities accessible to anyone, Starcity offers its residents a comfortable living experience with a private, fully furnished bedroom, and private or shared bath, complemented by warm, inviting shared kitchens and living spaces. Our priority is to make it so that our residents feel like they’re part of a greater community from day one, while always feeling at home. We also don't waste space building hundreds of kitchens and living rooms that go virtually unused throughout a given week. The past methodologies are not sustainable and waste a tone of space.
We find underutilized multi-family, hotel, and commercial spaces or build ground-up developments to create coliving communities, adding to the city's housing stock without displacing a community’s longtime residents.
With community-building at its core, Starcity works with local community stakeholders, government agencies, and nonprofits to understand the communities we enter, offer volunteer and engagement opportunities to our residents, and attempt to become a source of energy and opportunity for the neighborhoods in which we offer housing.
The real estate industry and developers are focused on developing projects that create the highest return for investors, creating luxury units catering to high-income populations, which aren’t accessible to the average person looking to live or start their life in a city. Governments, on the other hand, are focused on supporting the lowest income individuals via subsidized housing. The result is that middle-income earners are the first to be squeezed out of cities.
We are just getting started, and hope that you bear with us as we get to our fully realized vision. Developments like 457 Minna (https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/Co-living-tower-...) which breaks ground next year in San Francisco will allow someone on minimum wage to afford to live in a Class A property in the heart of the city.
Please feel free to AMA or reach out to me directly if you'd like to hear more about what we're working on.
STARCITY | Senior Frontend Software Engineer | San Francisco, CA | https://starcity.com/
Starcity is looking for a senior frontend software engineer. We're a young company that's growing fast and needs people who can keep up. Above all else, we value integrity, perseverance and humility in our team members.
Starcity is a lifestyle brand which provides beautifully designed co-living communities in major cities, and we're on track to welcome thousands (and one day millions) of customers to our communities over the coming years. We have awesome backers including Y Combinator, Bullpen Capital, NEA, Index Ventures and have been featured in notable publications like The New York Times, Business Insider, San Francisco Chronicle, TechCrunch and many more.
Our mission is to make great cities accessible to everyone. We do that by creating community homes—a unique new affordable way to live in cities. We’re a tech-enabled company that places a high value on experimentation and excellent craftsmanship.
Most of the members of Starcity are local employees that work in service professions. We have nurses, teachers, flight attendants, baristas, writers, bartenders and many of these trades require proximity to work so they can't work remote. Unfortunately the cost of an average studio in San Francisco is $3,000 a month and forget about buying a house where the average price is around $1.3M. For median income earners making between $40-90k a year, the options are really bad. Many of them are forced to live with 4 people in a three bedroom, pay 50-60% of their income in rent or commute 2 hours. Those are bad options, so we set out to build something that allows more people to live comfortably.
A couple of questions: - How did you build the model to ensure accurate summaries? - How did you build the audio version? - What's your tech stack?