Let's look at some hard numbers.
Assume we have 7 people willing to
strike the earth. They each come into this with the same money they would need to spend to secure a studio apartment: first months' rent and a security deposit.
Studio apartment
1 month of rent $600
Deposit $250
Total $850
Seven of those would have a total of $5950 to spend on the first month of housing.
Here is a
Craigslist link for an 8-bedroom 3 bathroom house in Tacoma. I don't know how long that link will be good for. Suffice to say, $2000 deposit and $2800 per month rent and the house looks decent, older, and sturdy.
You can assume $40 per person per month in utilities. Each of these people would need to be able to pay $540 per month minimum to support themselves in rent.
If they all got into the house, they would save a tiny bit of money on the initial and only $200 each per month. Probably not worth it.
A better example would be
this. Puyallup. 7 bedrooms, 3 baths, not a great looking house but maybe okay. $290k. That means seven people would split it and in the end it would cost each of them $41k. You might think that's a great price for a house, but you need to look for a 1 br 0.5 bath house and see how much that costs.
Perhaps a cheaper option would be to buy a piece of land and build on it, but I don't know what the costs of construction are these days. Based on
one website, we could expect with a very simple design to pay $80 per square foot. So let's look at that:
Each person's living space will be about 20x20. Big bedroom. 400 sqft x 7 people. 2800.
We need a kitchen space. 20x20 is acceptable. Dining room, double that. So 400 sqft x 3. 1200.
Need a communal lounge. Probably 30x30. 900.
Three bathrooms seems normal. Each is 10x10. 100 x 3. 300.
Need some storage space. Say 10x10 per person. 100 x 7. 700.
Workshop / garage. Three vehicles (or two cars and two motorcycles for example). Each space is about 5x15, double that for space around the cars. 100 x 3. 300.
Add it up and you're at 6200 sqft. Almost $500k.
But those are fairly large living spaces. I think we can't cut down the kitchen much, or the garage, or the bathrooms. So let's go with this:
Bedrooms 10x10
Kitchen 20x20
No dining room, we use the lounge which is 30x30
Bathrooms 10x10
Storage 5x5
Garage 10x30
That's down to about 2800 sqft, about $225k
Now let's get a little crazy.
This guy says a 20,000 sqft warehouse costs $35 per sq ft. Assuming it scales down to our desired 3000-6000 sq ft, you'd pay
3000 sq ft: 105k
6000 sq ft: 210k
This place claims a prefab steel building would cost $20 to $30 per sqft, with modular traditional buildings (desirable for insulation purposes) would cost $50 per sqft. You could use steel for the garage / workshop and for the storage spaces.
3000 sq ft steel only: 75k
6000 sq ft steel only: 150k
Of course when building your own structures you still have the extra cost of the land. And the fees and permits and such for the building project.
This page suggests that half of that $80 per sqft is labor and half is materials. You'll spend another $40 per sqft on land, and $40 per sqft on builder profit margin and waste. Which suggests that if you do all your own labor ...
But nah, that would be pretty difficult. You'd need at least a couple trained carpenters. But if you did,
3,000 sqft (materials only): 120k
6,000 sqft (materials only): 240k