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.
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).
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.