>Perhaps there is a market here: Inexpensive boarding houses for young people trying to get a start in high-cost-of-living job centers. If there were a place for young folks to live where you could get a room w/space for a bed and a desk, shared bathroom/showers, and 2 meals/day for, say $300-500/mo in Boston, I bet they would fill up. Allow people to focus on finding work, give them a leg up of sorts.
I have two responses here:
A) In Boston, it would never be allowed. Boston-Cambridge municipalities have LOVED the boom in rental values from both the growing student populations and their low unemployment rates. Why would they ruin a good thing by allowing new building, let along ugly, high-density boarding houses that resemble nothing more than student housing? And everyone official in Boston who isn't a student despises students.
B) I've thought of starting just this, but it WOULD be your college dorm (or at least, in the style of my old college dorms). Checks on room conditions every so often, eviction for damage or partying too much, month-to-month tenancy. You're missing an angle here: many people like the dorm/boarding-house lifestyle better than the apartment/house lifestyle. Many people enjoy not owning very much and having the majority of their life be "out there".
C) That fact leaves us with the opportunity to create a social environment for the long-term residents and to branch off into things like supplying network access or food-service.
In short, this is an amply viable business model (works for all the damn colleges!) that never gets used due to municipal and cultural biases against it.
I have two responses here:
A) In Boston, it would never be allowed. Boston-Cambridge municipalities have LOVED the boom in rental values from both the growing student populations and their low unemployment rates. Why would they ruin a good thing by allowing new building, let along ugly, high-density boarding houses that resemble nothing more than student housing? And everyone official in Boston who isn't a student despises students.
B) I've thought of starting just this, but it WOULD be your college dorm (or at least, in the style of my old college dorms). Checks on room conditions every so often, eviction for damage or partying too much, month-to-month tenancy. You're missing an angle here: many people like the dorm/boarding-house lifestyle better than the apartment/house lifestyle. Many people enjoy not owning very much and having the majority of their life be "out there".
C) That fact leaves us with the opportunity to create a social environment for the long-term residents and to branch off into things like supplying network access or food-service.
In short, this is an amply viable business model (works for all the damn colleges!) that never gets used due to municipal and cultural biases against it.