Housing shortage leads to preposterous situation.
By Raif Karerat
WASHINGTON, DC: There’s an apparent housing crisis in the South Bay region of Mountain View, California, and it’s encouraged a new form of short-term real estate.
A man in the Monta Loma neighborhood of Mountain View is renting out a tent in a “beautiful garden†outside his residence for visitors or slightly more permanent residences for the high price of $46 per night; an amount that adds up to roughly $965 per month, according to CBS San Francisco.
“Indeed, it is preposterous,†Landlord John Potter told Fusion, “because there aren’t a lot of places people would consider paying that much. I’ve also have had people ask for a discount if they bring their own camping stuff. I have not followed through on that.â€
The Coleman tent, which measures 9 feet by 7 feet and reportedly retails for about two nights worth of rent in the garden, is currently listed on Airbnb as “very close to the Caltrain and Google X.†The website also states that Potter offers one shower per day for renters as well as the option to eat indoors .
The residence outside of which the tent is stationed actually belongs to Potters parents, with whom he lives, but he told CBS that they let him keep the rent.
At first, after initially joking about the notion, Potter and his parents listed the tent at about $20 a night, but there were so many requests that they needed to bump up the price. Eventually, after multiple hikes in price, the tent stabilized at its current rate.
Potter told Fusion that more than half the residents of the tent are tech industry workers needing a place to stay for a night or two while they look for housing.