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.