New co-living project for low income residents
LONDON: A 16 storey, 270 unit high-rise co-living project will be created as a furnished multigenerational community targeting middle and low income residents.
San Francisco-based Starcity, a technology enabled real estate developer that focuses on modular co-living developments, announced Wednesday the launch of invest.starcity.com — a new platform allowing accredited investors to put their money into its housing projects.
The first project available for investors is Starcity Minna, a fully approved, 16-story, 270 unit, high-rise in the South of Market district. Starcity will operate the 122,845-square-foot development as a furnished residential community targeting middle and low-income residents.
“We are thrilled to launch invest.starcity.com, so investors of all kinds have the opportunity to back Starcity developments. Typically, large-scale institutional investments are reserved for closed-door dealings, and we’re excited to open these deals up to democratize access for more people,” Jon Dishotsky, CEO and co-founder of Starcity, said in a statement.
Starcity said the new template creates a path for major affordable housing in any city that has income inequality exacerbated by the pandemic. Real estate has long been a stodgy investment industry, Dishotsky said, designed to keep the main street investor out — and Starcity aims to change that with this launch.
The new financial platform comes as the company continues to grow. Earlier this month, Starcity announced that it had acquired competitor Ollie from New York as part of a strategic consolidation that aims to bring Starcity into new major markets. Starcity will take control of Ollie’s technology, intellectual property and its business agreements in regions such as the Bay Area, New York, Los Angeles and Boston. Starcity’s portfolio will grow to 1,500 units globally (400 of them in San Francisco), with over 3,000 in development throughout North America and Western Europe, and another 10,000 units in negotiations.
Starcity, founded in 2016, started out by renovating existing residential or hotel properties into co-living spaces and has raised more than $50 million in venture capital funding.
