Ask HN: How can I find a bicoastal roommate?

[frankhorrigan]

I've lived in San Francisco for the past 15 years but spent most of the past year in New York and loved it. I also love my apartment and friends and life in San Francisco.

I live in a two bedroom apartment in the Mission district alone and I have to imagine there's someone like me, in the same situation, in New York.

What I'm imagining is that I would trade my second bedroom--currently my office--for someone's second bedroom in New York and we could both live bicoastal lives and travel between the two cities as we please.

I keep posting to housing boards with no response because, I think, the perfect person for this situation hasn't even considered it before.

I also imagine the perfect person for this situation is probably also a fully remote software engineer-type like myself.

Has anyone tried this before and had any luck? Where should I be looking?

[Kommu]

Hi! That's what we are building for at Kommu!

Kommu is a mobile-first social network that allows users to (1) discover and coordinate travel with friends and connections, and (2) propose home exchanges within their personal trusted circles to travel more affordably.

We are prepping to launch by EOY, but if you sign up for the waitlist (gokommu.com) then you can apply to join the members Slack group where friends of friends are actively listing places for swaps and exchanges.

[pcthrowaway]

It sounds like your target users are digital nomads with location-flexible work, and travel with laptops.

I'm in this audience, and avoid anything 'mobile-first' like the plague. I want a website I can access on a laptop/desktop, I don't like pecking out messages on my phone, and definitely don't want to install a beta app on my phone.

[breakerbox]

Hah, I thought of Kommu when I saw this post! I've used their slack to stay in NYC and had someone stay at my place in Austin. Would (and have) recommend to a friend

[randomopining]

Darn I thought of this idea last year but yeah haven't done anything on it. Nice

[LionTamer]

Really interesting business, just signed up for the waitlist

[BigRedDog1669]

Seems like a great idea, but it would be hard to find the people willing to do it.

Without a trusted marketplace for this, you might try to meet more people in NYC and ask around to see if anyone with a spare room is interested in doing it.

[matt_heimer]

Are you wanting someone to travel with you or just swap apartments? If the later, have you tried googling "housing swap"? I know craigslist had a section years ago.

[meco]

Neither. I think he’s looking for someone with a spare room in NYC where they can both come and go as they please.

So on any given day there are four possibilities both in NYC, both in SF, OP in NYC && roommate in SF, and roommate in SF && OP in NYC

It’s a pretty interesting concept, not one I’ve considered before, but one I imagine there would be interest in.

[dmonitor]

Don't see why it can't just be a situation where you have a different roommate in each state.

[sjsdaiuasgdia]

Cost vs privacy / alone time.

Roommate in each state allows more spreading of the cost, but it's more likely that you and one of the roommates are in the home at the same time. Presumably each of those roommates would be treating each home as their primary residence.

With the originally proposed setup, there's a fair chance that you are in SF while the sole "roommate" is in NYC and vice versa.

[frankhorrigan]

Yup, that’s it exactly. There’s a good chance that you would be alone in one city or the other. And in theory you could both treat the second room as a guest room. With consent, etc.

[frankhorrigan]

Yeah, I’ve tried posting on housing swap web sites. But it seems they’re more geared towards full swaps which are shorter.