Airbnb Co-Founder’s New Business Is Building Small Homes in Backyards

Joe Gebbia co-founded Airbnb Inc. as a company that helped people rent out their homes to guests. His new venture is about adding small homes to people’s backyards.

The new startup, known as Samara, plans to sell factory-produced studio and one-bedroom units to homeowners. The company is looking to capitalise on laxer laws and rising demand for affordable housing spurred by surging home prices and ballooning rents.

Samara is initially launching in California, which is one of the states trying to boost its housing supply by easing restrictions on accessory dwelling units. The modest residences are located on the same lot as a single-family home and in California can be as small as 150 square feet. The state now allows homeowners to build ADUs in their backyard even if the homeowners association prohibits it.

The company, which takes its name from the samara fruit, hopes eventually to expand beyond California. It is betting that worsening housing shortages and the rising popularity of remote work will increase the need for ADUs.

Unable to afford houses of their own, more Americans are moving into converted garages or guesthouses and multigenerational households are on the rise. Meanwhile, people working from home are more likely to need additional space away from noisy children and other distractions.

“Work from home at least once per week has fundamentally changed people’s relationship to their home,” Mr. Gebbia said.

Starting prices for Samara’s ADU line, dubbed Backyard, will range from $299,000 for 430-square-foot studios to $339,000 for 550-square-foot one-bedroom units in the San Francisco Bay Area, with slightly lower prices for homes in Southern California, the company said.

Mr. Gebbia, who co-founded the company with Mike McNamara, the former chief executive of electronics manufacturer Flex Ltd., said the units will be built in factories by a modular construction company. Samara will design and market them. It will also handle applications for building permits and the installation. The customisable homes come with solar panels on the roof designed to meet all the unit’s electricity needs.

Samara isn’t the first company to roll out these small homes, and faces competition especially in California. The state issued nearly 20,000 building permits for ADUs in 2021, up from 12,520 in 2019 and just 1,160 in 2016, according to the California Department of Housing and Community Development.

Samara also faces a challenging economic environment. Construction costs are high by historical standards while inflation, rising interest rates and a weakening housing market are eating into homeowners’ spending power.

Mr. Gebbia, 41 years old, graduated from the Rhode Island School of Design before becoming roommates with fellow Airbnb co-founder Brian Chesky in San Francisco in 2007. The roommates quit their jobs that year and launched the short-term rental company in 2008.

Mr. Gebbia became interested in ADUs when he wanted to build one on his land but found the options underwhelming. “That was a tiny seed that was planted, you can say, by personal frustration,” he said.

Samara started off in 2016 as a research and design unit of Airbnb. Mr. Gebbia said he began working on the ADU concept with Mr. McNamara while still at the short-term rental company. “It got to the point where we both realized this needs to be an independent company. So earlier this year, we moved out of Airbnb,” he said.

In July, Mr. Gebbia announced that he would leave his full-time role at Airbnb. Samara is now an independent startup, although Airbnb owns a minority stake, according to Mr. Gebbia.