I've been wondering what effect these kinds of apartments would have on the price of fancier dwellings. A cheaper alternative might decrease all costs, or it could set a price floor below which even the really bad non-shared dwellings don't drop below.

> could set a price floor below which even the really bad non-shared dwellings don't drop below

What's effectively being suggested in these threads is a hostel and they already do exist in a number of cities, even in America (although they're more popular elsewhere).

I haven't seen a hostel create a "floor" in prices the way you describe. A really terrible motel is often cheaper than a nice shared hostel room. Even if it wasn't it would be a leap to say that new housing caused existing housing to go up in price.

But is a really terrible motel ever cheaper than a really terrible hostel?

> it would be a leap to say that new housing caused existing housing to go up in price.

This is the counter argument I'm considering. It really depends on the market incentives for landlords, and how that pans out. Whether an increase in shared-facility rentals result in a decrease of prices for non-shared rentals, or whether it results in equivalent numbers of non-shared rentals getting pulled out of the rental market entirely, and the remaining ones priced upward.