I'm David Weekly, one of the co-founders of SuperHappyDevHouse. Finding a very big, nice house willing to rent to a large group of twentysomethings is indeed hard. I had to spend nine months looking at over fifty houses to line up the current place. There were a number of just heartbreaking letdowns - amazing places where the landlord changed his mind at the last minute. I'm not at all surprised that elq was turned down at five places. Expect to look at at least ten places before you find one that you like and that is willing to rent to a non-family.

It is incredible that there really are people out there who hold out for an "executive family" willing to rent a place for $12,000/month on a one-year lease. What kind of retarded executive is going to blow some $150,000/year just on rent to live somewhere? And how many such people are out there?

http://sfbay.craigslist.org/search/apa?query=&minAsk=6000

I guess some folks just got screwed over by their mortgages and feel like they have to hold out for someone who can pay that much. In reality, having six professionals on a lease gives the landlord a much more stable source of income (if one person loses their job, it's not a big deal) and less actual damage (have you seen what a three year old can do to a place in a month?). That said, most landlords are kind of patently insane.

So just grit your teeth, prepare for a lot of rejection and a long haul and get to it! (Hey, that's pretty good general advice!)

As an FYI, if you're willing to live in or near Half Moon Bay, you can find some unbelievably awesome homes with lovely views for decent prices.

http://sfbay.craigslist.org/pen/apa/357603523.html

I wonder the same thing about those executive houses. In my 3 month housing search I have seen the same places available the whole time.

I'm about to move out to Silicon Valley, and I need a place to live. I would really like to room in a house or apartment with a bunch of other hackers and/or entrepreneurial types.

Is anyone else is in a similar position? Or does anyone know of someone looking for a roommate or to sublet?

I am now regretting the fratty "Hacker House" parenthetical in the title, but I think it'd be fun as hell to bring a bunch of hackers together into a nurturing environment, where we sip not from foamy Dixie cups, but from the fountain of our collective knowledge.

If there're a lot of us, I'll throw together a hacker housing app to help everyone get in touch.

I sort of did this with some of my engineer friends from college. I say 'sort of' because although we're all hackers, we're not all hackers of the YC news variety.

I'll just say you CAN get housing for 4-5 engineers, but it's not always easy. We were rejected from at least 1 place because we were not a family.

You might have a hard time if some or all of you don't have steady income and are not students with access to their parents' checkbook. If you do have income, you're going to look better than students, and many landlords are open to renting to students.

A few years ago I attempted to do a very similar thing with a few friends from the goog. The issue that we ran into - owners really don't like renting large places (like a house) to non-families. So the four of us (including one woman!) were denied at each of the 5 places we applied.

I wish you better luck!

When taking a place on a six month contract with it to run on with two months' notice thereafter, I've made up for the lack of "normality", i.e. no employer salary cheque, etc., by paying the six months rent up front and then reverting to the normal monthly rent payment. Every landlord so far has agreed. It may help to think of ways you can persuade a landlord, and often than means paying more money (the interest I lost -- not much).

Were you trying to rent a house in Atherton? Group renting is very common in the Valley. In San Francisco it is the default housing situation for almost anyone under the age of 30.

No - Palo Alto and Mountain View were the focus.

There was 4 of us, each working at very well known companies and making each over $100k/yr, so we wanted a nice 4-5 bedroom house preferably with a pool and plenty of parking. Those types of homes were not very common and the 5 we found _really_ didn't want to rent their home to a misfit group of mid to late 20 somethings.

I was wondering about this, thanks for the info! I'm sure owners won't look too kindly on self-employed entrepreneurs either ;)

With a big down payment they shouldn't have to care.

UPvoted for title! Reminds me of the Animal House fraternity.

Robot House or Lambda Lambda Lambda would be a good name for a house too.

λf (λx f (x x)) (λx f (x x)) House

ROBOT HOOOOUUUSSSEEE!! Was my first thought when I read the title too. Tri-Lamb is also a worthy choice. Good taste! ;)

Yes some crusty dean would always be hassling them and threatening to kick them off the Greek Council.

I'm also interested in this (but can't move in until december).

Someone should talk to David Weekly / shdh. I know there are a couple guys @ shdh that are looking to start up a geek house. I think they're also planning on using the house to host future shdh events.

I'd be interested, but not for a little while: I just signed a 6 month lease (so I could move in at the beginning of January). I moved out to the Bay Area to work for a startup a few weeks ago, but I've been planning to try and find a place with some fellow geeks. The rent here is pretty crazy, and it would be nice to live with some smart, like-minded folks.

Ask the guys who run SuperHappyDevHouse (superhappydevhouse.org), they have a house with ~6 nerds (I'm sure it was a huge pain to get organized, and many of them are older which I'd imagine helps). If you have enough reliable friends a small house seems like a nice option (they have a rather large house with a massive electric bill :-P).

Mod +1 for something like this up in SF.

Me too