This Company Wants to Rent Your DC Home and Lease the Individual Bedrooms

• February 7, 2019

by Nena Perry-Brown

Traditionally, homeowners hire property managers to rent out their homes, and communal living has occupied its own space on the margins. Now, a new company wants to combine the co-living concept with a property management approach, all on an Airbnb-reminiscent platform.

Bungalow manages the task of turning a private home into what one might refer to as a group home, while offering amenities and a vibe comparable to co-living companies like WeLive and Common. The company, which has described itself as "the next SoHo House for millennials moving into new cities", leases the house from its owner and sublets the rooms out. 

The DC properties on the Bungalow site, primarily clustered in Pleasant Plains, Columbia Heights and Mount Pleasant, offer private rooms starting at $800 a month, centered around furnished common areas. A monthly fee covers utilities, including high-speed internet, as well as cleaning services (parking or a washer/dryer are dependent on the home itself). Lease terms range from six to 18 months, and some buildings have communal events.

Each city where Bungalow operates has a Community Manager, and each home has an "anchor resident", who is the first person to begin renting there, and there are opportunities to meet-and-greet potential roommates before they are approved to ensure compatibility. Atomic Labs, a firm from Paypal-founder Peter Thiel and venture capitalist Marc Andreessen, backs Bungalow.

This article originally published at https://dc.urbanturf.com/articles/blog/this-company-wants-to-turn-your-bungalow-into-a-co-living-building/14980