Not me. I am a divorced guy, living in a 3 story home situated in the middle of a 2 acre lot. I like my space!
When I moved into my current apartment, the rent was $685 per month for a one bedroom. Other one bedrooms in my area were going for around $550 per month. The difference when I was shopping was the square footage. A typical one bedroom in this area is 500 square feet. Mine is 928. The rooms that the OP are talking about are the size of my closet. I truly don’t think I could live in such a small space again by choice especially since I’ve been so spoiled here the last 4 years.
Last fall I got a chance to stand in Henry David Thoreau’s cabin. It was feakishly small at 150 sqare feet.
That sounds exactly like living in a single dorm room - at least some of the singles at Kent State (IIRC, even some of the doubles!)
It wouldn’t be too bad if you had a social life/heavy work load and didn’t spend a lot of time at home. I can see getting claustrophobic if you spent all day, every day there.
The price tho…wow.
Or Boston. I pay $910 for my studio, and that’s considered cheap.
You can build your own house for $2800.
I lived in a house with 10 bedrooms and 9 tenants. (One guy had 2 rooms.) The downstairs (where I lived) had 4 rooms/3 tenants, and the upstairs had 6/6. Each floor had a bathroom, so I only shared it with 2 or 3 others. There was only one kitchen, but there was an extra fridge+pantry+table in the living room which served as the kitchen for the upstairs people. Only us downstairs people cooked every day; this was more luck than design. There was a nice yard, and a driveway that could fit 6 cars.
Many of the upstairs people were not there very often, though one guy was a professor at the university. I could walk 10 minutes to my office. I did it for 4 years, my room was 100 square feet, my rent was $400-$450, and I loved the place.
Let me tell you though: even though no one felt it was their responsibility to wash the floors or scrub the bathroom, due to the nature of the kitchen, it was kept ship-shape. No dishes left out after cooking, and all surfaces and sink always clean. (The landlady, who lived next door, came over every couple of months and cleaned the floors. She always complained, but I say if you run a rooming house, you run a rooming house, even if you do tell the zoning people that it’s a group rent situation.)
I don’t get who the market is at that price, despite what the guy in the article says.
You can get a similar studio (which would have a full kitchen and more space) for the same price point or a room in a house (with access to a kitchen and often times access to more) for a little less.
Plus, I feel so sorry for their neighbors. Parking there is already a nightmare and at least one third (and I’d bet well over that) of the renters will have at least one car.
BTW, 600? For a mortgage? When did you people buy your houses - 1986?
Not to threadshit, but I’ve been getting increasingly frustrated with the use of the word “real” to describe something that’s less than desirable.
“Real woman” - large woman
“Real city” - Detroit, Cleveland, Buffalo, etc.
“Real folks” - poor people
I can afford a house or large apartment. Guess that makes me “fake”.
I suspect people just aren’t taking into account the different markets. My mortgage for an 850 sq ft townhouse is $600, but I live in Mesa, AZ, not the middle of Seattle. Comparatively, I suspect a 100 sq ft apartment in NYC for $600 would be considered an absolute steal, though I could be wrong.
Down payment as well. My mortgage was a bit below $600, but I put half down.
If you want to compare it to your mortgage then you also have to include utilities (this place has cable and internet included), taxes, maintenance, and HOA fees if you have them. I’d be really surprised if anyone in a major market says they can do all that for $600 a month, outside of folks who already paid off their mortgage.
If you just want to compare it to other apartments, the all-utilities-included is still a big deal. And the fact that it’s furnished and allows short-term leases. I agree with amarinth, most people looking for a short-term bed and a shower arrangement will just answer roommate ads, and that’s what I’ve done when I was in that situation, but I could see why someone would rather have their own place, that no one else has a key to. After all, they don’t have to sell the entire city on the idea, they just have to find enough people to fill their building.
Note to self: parking spaces in Seattle are huge.
Maybe if they made them a little smaller they’d have more space for affordable apartments!
- In Columbia, South Carolina, not Seattle.
Where would I put my bookshelves?! No, I don’t want to live there. I don’t really own much, but it still wouldn’t fit in there.
Looking at the photo essay, I think I could do it if I had the right furniture (like a loft bed to give me more floor space), but as others have mentioned, the cost would be too prohibitive for the quality / quanitity.
where did you find the photo essay? I went to Videré’s webpage, to the location and only found 4 architectural renderings and no links that I could find to anywhere else…
And going by the renderings, I see no way that a wheel chair can get into the building, there are steps freaking everywhere!
Memory. First thing to go. 
