Guys Pays $500 a Month To Live In A Box In Friends Living-room

For those of you that thought Sydney rents are high are high it may be time to think again..

San Francisco is a boom town, and that’s going to make it a pricey place to live, at least while the boom keeps going, with renters facing $3,500 a month for a new 500-square-foot studio apartment, with parking extra….

However there is plenty of speculation about the links between the city’s booming tech scene and soaring rents, but is the connection actually as strong as we think it is?

Well maybe it is as San Francisco is home to both the highest rents in the country and the most venture capital investors in the country, drawing in 32 percent of all venture capital dollars spent in 2014.

That’s why a San Francisco-based illustrator, Peter Berkowitz, built himself a box to live in. 

He calls it a pod, and it’s parked, in his pal’s living room. He pays $400 a month in rent to the purveyor of said living room. The fixed costs of building the pod were $108 a month, if you average the costs out over a year. That’s where he comes up with the $508 monthly cost, according to a blog post Berkowitz wrote about his adventure.

“Yes, living in a pod is silly. But the silliness is endemic to San Francisco’s absurdly high housing prices,” writes Berkowitz, 25, in his blog post. “The pod is just a solution that works for me.”

Plus, living in a pod isn’t so bad, at least according to Berkowitz. He says that with a bit of innovative design, his pod is pretty comfy. (We have embedded a handful of snaps below.)

“People are typically surprised that I would want to live in a pod, but I think they tend to underestimate how pleasant a pod can be if it’s designed smartly. It’s the coziest bedroom I’ve ever had,” writes Berkowitz. “It’s the only bed I’ve had with a fold-down desk, a slanted and cushioned backboard, and uniformly ideal light for reading (I can read comfortably from anywhere on my bed. This sounds trivial but isn’t.).”

Pod-living is a more functional alternative living situation than hanging a partition curtain because it offers more privacy and quiet, says Berkowitz. And he would like to help others build a pod, if they are interested.   

Turning to a pod wasn’t a desperate last ditch effort to find a warm place to put his head down at night. Berkowitz was subletting apartments in San Francisco before turning to pod living.

Read more… San Francisco Rent Is So Insane, This Guy Lives in a Box for $508 a Month

“Yes, living in a pod is silly. But the silliness is endemic to San Francisco’s absurdly high housing prices,” writes Berkowitz, 25, in his blog post. “The pod is just a solution that works for me.”

Plus, living in a pod isn’t so bad, at least according to Berkowitz. He says that with a bit of innovative design, his pod is pretty comfy. (We have embedded a handful of snaps below.)

“People are typically surprised that I would want to live in a pod, but I think they tend to underestimate how pleasant a pod can be if it’s designed smartly. It’s the coziest bedroom I’ve ever had,” writes Berkowitz. “It’s the only bed I’ve had with a fold-down desk, a slanted and cushioned backboard, and uniformly ideal light for reading (I can read comfortably from anywhere on my bed. This sounds trivial but isn’t.).”

Image Credit: Peter Berkowitz

Pod-living is a more functional alternative living situation than hanging a partition curtain because it offers more privacy and quiet, says Berkowitz. And he would like to help others build a pod, if they are interested.