Idea: House-sharing on steroids

[jaysee]

I want to share a long-term dream I've been contemplating recently.

Imagine waking up to this...





...but instead of paying the full $15,000 p/month as individuals, we split it 6 ways, thus making it reasonably affordable for anyone with a net worth of $1M and over.

We form a group of 6 dedicated Mustachians, who have met many times and gotten to know eachother pretty well.

All of us will have agreed ahead-of-time to:

• Lend a hand with any cleaning or maintenance required
• Not bring any outside people to the apartment (except partners, who are included in the group)
• Leave once the lease is up (we all lead a minimalist lifestyle in the meantime, avoiding bulky purchases like furniture, etc)
• Spend a lot of the time outside the apartment
• All quiet from 9 PM onwards, lights off from 11 PM onwards
• Everyone has to wear sunglasses

With the right group of people (bold, underline, italics mine), and a convinced landlord, might this work out to be a pretty sweet deal?

Basically we would get the communion and camaraderie of a bunch of fellow Mustachians, combined with beautiful, spectacular scenery (take your pick from sea-sides, city skylines, forests, etc) and that mischievous, Mustachian feeling of being able to enjoy amazing locations at a fraction of the cost of owning them.





Thinking about this some more, I guess even $15k might be more than we need to pay.

• We could scout out countries/cities/areas that are cheaper
• We could rent during off-peak times
• We could come to 'caretaker' arrangements with landlords, in exchange for a discount

This seems like a neat way to take an enjoyable and fancy 'staycation' within a minimalist lifestyle and budget.

We could start with temporary blocks, say 1-month or 3-month, then move up to 6-month, 12-month, etc. if we all wanted to, and didn't get sick of eachother!

I realise there may be some complexity involved in the meeting and planning phase, and that it might take some perseverance to get an owner to agree to lease their gorgeous property to 6 people, even if all 6 are millionaires. However, it doesn't seem beyond the realms of possibility.

Maybe I'm over-selling this, and (some of) you have already been doing this for years. In which case, please let me know so I can join you!!

Any thoughts on this generally? Would you consider signing up to a FIRE'd house sharing team?

[MonkeyJenga]

For $2,500 a month, I would want to be able to bring friends over. Damn.

Why not just get a group of your friends together and rent a cabin or something?

[jaysee]

For $2,500 a month, I would want to be able to bring friends over. Damn.

Why not just get a group of your friends together and rent a cabin or something?

Maybe we could have friends over, but it might get a bit crowded! I guess what I'm trying to do is build a friend-circle who are also and simultaneously Mustachians, so I can do stuff like this on the cheap.

[MonkeyJenga]

How small is this insanely expensive luxury rental going to be that 6 people is the absolute max? Anyway. I'm not at all your target market. I'm just not sure who is. This idea isn't cheap, so you don't need mmm friends for it. But if you want the friends, have you tried going to meetups?

[APowers]

Is it just me, or is this a timeshare with more steps? Would I be able to sell my spot?

[ixtap]

Lights out? Seems like you have too many rules to share your space effectively.

[Freedomin5]

We do this, but with our normal friendship group, who are not Mustachian. We pick a place to vacation, like Whistler, BC for a week, and then we find friends, or friends of friends to join us. Usually, it consists of an email blast to our friends with a “Hey! A bunch of us are interested in going to [place] on [date]. Anyone else wanna come?” Once we get a headcount, one of us (deemed the organizer) rents cabins or ski condos or a villa large enough to house everyone. People who are able to donate time pitch in to do the grocery shopping and be designated drivers. The day before heading to the cabin, we stock up on groceries, and then we carpool to the cabin. At the end of the week we tally up the total costs and split it between all of the participants. It works great!

Another way we do something similar is what we did last summer. DH and I bought a cottage (granted, totally not Mustachian), but we invited our friends up. They brought food for the weekend and helped us paint Muskoka chairs and fix things around the cottage in exchange for free board at a lakefront cottage in a very popular summer vacation spot. We got free labor and free food and good company, they got a free cottage and hiking and beach that would otherwise cost $1000 for the weekend.

We don’t really have that many rules about curfew or whatnot, but we do make sure the space is designed so that people can be loud and not disturb the people who want to be quiet. And everyone is free to do their own thing or to join in on group games like Settlers of Catan or Bang or Dutch Blitz.

I don’t think you have to do this idea with Mustachians to do it on the cheap. Lots of non-Mustachians also appreciate a good deal.

[Metalcat]

What's with the sunglasses rule??