Ears definitely perked up when San Francisco startup, Recharge, started offering hotel stays by the minute a few years back (What? It’s for… you know… naps, showers, phone calls — NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS).
Now, per Axios, the company says it’s moving to offer the same service in a more intrusive setting: People’s homes.
Who needs a nap pod when you have someone’s seaside condo?
Founded in 2015, Recharge actually got its start renting friends’ homes by the minute. But at the time, the company couldn’t figure out a way to properly manage home inventory, so it settled with hotels.
Since then, Recharge has raised $10m in funding and had over 50k bookings with an average stay of 2 hours (prices vary, but in 2016, the rate was $0.66 per minute or $40 for an hour).
But now the old home-rental problem is done and dusted, giving homeowners the choice to either manage cleaning and maintenance themselves (making upwards of $2k+ per month) or let Recharge do it (for a fee of $500 a month).
Home-sharing just got even more non-committal
So far, the Homes service has launched just over 1k listings in the Bay Area, Los Angeles, and New York — with another 80k people reportedly on a waiting list.
Cities like San Francisco and New York are notoriously strict with home-sharing laws. Luckily, because there are no overnight stays, Recharge found a way to slip through the cracks… but only for a few minutes at a time.