Tech

Live in this Silicon Valley man's tent ... for $900 a month

Courtesy John Potter

If you're traveling to Mountain View, California, where Google has its headquarters, hospitality might be an issue.

Not only is the average price of a hotel in Silicon Valley higher than in New York City and London, but AirBnB rentals in the area are hard to come by. And they can be expensive if you do secure one.

That's why John Potter, founder of Mountain View-based www.awwpictures.com, is listing his property on AirBnB: A tent in his parents' backyard for almost $900 a month.

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"Because we're in Mountain View, next to a lot of jobs and train tracks that people use to travel to San Francisco, you can get a lot of money renting anything here," Potter said.

He put the listing up last week after joking about it with his brother and a friend. Potter says the idea was that in Silicon Valley people would literally pay anything for a place to live. At first, he listed it for $20 a night, but there was so much demand that Potter decided to increase the price to $46.

So far, Potter has had three people stay in the tent, usually for one- or two-night stints. And he has about 20-30 people who have requested to stay there, with a handful of people asking to stay for a month or longer.

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He says that more than half of the people who are requesting to stay are people with jobs in Silicon Valley looking for temporary housing in the area.

"I've gotten a few who have asked if it's real," Potter said. "They thought it was unusually cheap or something."

According to the listing, Potter might interact with guests "often depending on my schedule," and guests may "shower once per day" and "can eat inside."

As of June 25, the listing doesn't have any reviews, but Potter said he has received mostly positive feedback from his guests.

Others in the region have had the same idea, as more than a dozen listings for "tent" appear in California in AirBnB's listings. The company did not respond to a request for comment.