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Alana Semuels writes in The Atlantic that Millennials want the chance to be alone in their own bedrooms, bathrooms, and kitchens, but they also want to be social and never lonely.That's why real estate developer Troy Evans is starting construction on a new space in Syracuse called Commonspace that he envisions as a dorm for Millennials that will feature 21 microunits, each packed with a tiny kitchen, bathroom, bedroom, and living space into 300-square-feet. The microunits surround shared common areas including a chef's kitchen, a game room, and a TV room. "We're trying to combine an affordable apartment with this community style of living, rather than living by yourself in a one-bedroom in the suburbs," says Evans. The apartments will be fully furnished to appeal to potential residents who don't own much (the units will have very limited storage space). The bedrooms are built into the big windows of the office building—one window per unit—and the rest of the apartment can be traversed in three big leaps. The units will cost between $700 and $900 a month. "If your normal rent is $1,500, we're coming in way under that," says John Talarico. "You can spend that money elsewhere, living, not just sustaining."
Co-living has also gained traction in a Brooklyn apartment building that creates a networking and social community for its residents and where prospective residents answer probing questions like "What are your passions?" and "Tell us your story (Excite us!)." If accepted, tenants live in what the company's promotional materials describe as a "highly curated community of like-minded individuals." Millennials are staying single longer than previous generations have, creating a glut of people still living on their own in apartments, rather than marrying and buying homes. But the generation is also notoriously social, having been raised on the Internet and the constant communication it provides. This is a generation that has grown accustomed to college campuses with climbing walls, infinity pools, and of course, their own bathrooms. Commonspace gives these Milliennials the benefits of living with roommates—they can save money and stay up late watching Gilmore Girls—with the privacy and style an entitled generation might expect. "It's the best of both worlds," says Michelle Kingman. "You have roommates, but they're not roommates."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 12 2015, @11:25AM
Places where the houses are that cheap are places where the jobs don't pay anything.
And places where living expenses are ridiculously high often negate any gains you receive from being paid more. Not always, but often. It's about finding the right location, which many people don't try hard enough to do.
But if you're paying $100,000 for a house, chances are you made the wrong choice. Acting like good ("good" doesn't mean mansions) houses below that price don't exist is absolutely silly.
You need a certain amount of money to raise a family and pay for your own retirement.
Yeah, and most people seem to squander their money on useless garbage. Expensive phone service, unreliable and expensive vehicles, expensive cable TV service, unnecessarily expensive housing, not keeping their average price per meal under $2, not negotiating with companies for lower prices even when it is possible, etc. It's about knowing what to spend your money on, but people have been convinced by our consumerist society that they need to waste their money on the latest shiny gadgets.
Places where the houses are that cheap don't tend to provide enough for that.
And yet, there are many people raising families there.