Inside the new 'co-living' space where San Franciscans pay $2,600 for maid service and new friends
Common's newest building is a 12-bedroom, 12-bath walk-up in San Francisco's up and coming (read: fast-gentrifying) SoMa neighborhood.
Leases are flexible, and can last as few as three months or up to 12. There are only a few rooms still available at Common's newest location.
Unlike traditional dorms, Common's bedrooms are all single-occupancy (though couples may share a room). The rooms look straight out of a West Elm catalog.
That makes sense, given that some of the furnishings come from the popular furniture line.
The space's aesthetic is what founder Brad Hargreaves calls "Hudson Valley Americana," a blend of warm, homey textures and industrial fixtures.
Each building in Common's real estate collection aims to honor characteristics that are unique to the site. The SoMa location features all original wood paneling.
Bedrooms start at $2,600 per month, which is $860 less than the city's median rent for a one-bedroom apartment. But you get more than a place to lay your head.
The median rent of a one-bedroom apartment in San Francisco is $3,460, as of August 2016, according to real estate site Zumper.
Each floor accommodates six people and has a communal kitchen, souped up with a dishwasher and six-burner stove. Sunday night dinners are not uncommon at Common.
A cleaning crew comes once a week to mop, sweep, and scrub down the common areas. Private bathrooms and bedrooms are the tenants' responsibility.
There's no need to create chore charts or a schedule for watering plants.
Some bedrooms include a kitchenette with a sink, mini-fridge, and storage space. That's useful for the food-lover who has cooking gadgets that they don't want to keep in the common area.
The ultra-plush beds come with mattresses from Casper and linens from Parachute. Tenants can take their linens and towels with them after their lease ends.
Besides the furniture, the bedrooms are otherwise barren. A Common representative says they used to provide more decorations in the New York rooms, but tenants' feedback suggested those touches made the rooms feel like someone else's home.
Common squeezes personal storage space into surprising places, like above the bedroom closets. Ladders are provided.
When tenants move in, hangers are waiting in the closet so that settling in is as easy as unpacking your clothes.
About half of the tenants in the San Francisco location have private bathrooms, while half will share with one other resident. Shared commodes have doors that open into both rooms.
Sharing a bathroom might be worth it for the luxurious rain showerhead.
Each in-house washer and dryer set serves the six residents on each floor. They're free to use.
Rooftop access gives tenants a private place to sunbathe and space to grill a rack of ribs (through the grill is a little small for feeding a community this big).
Check out that view — you can see downtown San Francisco from another perspective.
The media has been quick to dub these co-living spaces "dorms for adults," but Brad Hargreaves, founder and CEO of Common, rejects the connotation.
I've never really understood the dorm comparison because [the assumption is] the only time that people can interact with their neighbors is when they're in college," Hargreaves tells Business Insider. "We don't think that's the case at all.
You're never too old to be surrounded by community.
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