After Roy Lee’s artificial intelligence start-up, Cluely, landed $5.3 million in venture capital funding this spring, he orchestrated a San Francisco real estate coup.
In May, Cluely leased eight apartments for its employees at a new luxury complex — where rents start at $3,000 a month and reach $12,000 a month for penthouse units — just a one-minute walk from its office in the city’s South of Market neighborhood. The apartments were a mix of one-bedroom and two-bedroom units in the 16-story building, which offers a fitness center, a rooftop bar, and concierge and housecleaning services.
“Going to the office should feel like you’re walking to your living room, so we really, really want people close,” said Mr. Lee, 22, who chose not to move into the apartments and lives in Cluely’s office, which is housed in a loftlike single-family home. “I feel like I’m more trying to build a frat house, and you don’t commute to a frat house.”
Driven by a boom in A.I. companies like Cluely, San Francisco’s residential rents have soared the most in the nation over the past year. Apartment prices in the city rose an average of 6 percent in that time, more than double the 2.5 percent increase in New York City, according to the real estate tracker CoStar. That now puts the average rent for a San Francisco apartment at $3,315 a month, right behind New York City’s $3,360, which is the nation’s highest.
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