Hot on the heels of the besieged WeWork being forced to file for bankruptcy, founder Adam Neumann has turned his attention to his newer real estate startup Flow.
Flow will officially launch its first property, a Fort Lauderdale apartment complex, early in the new year, according to Business Insider.
The move comes mere weeks after Neumann’s other company, WeWork, filed for bankruptcy, listing almost $19 billion in debts.
Flow is a residential real estate startup that wants to address a wide variety of issues, including housing availability, a lack of social interactions in a remote world and the inability of renters to gain equity in the homes they live in.
Neumann started the company in the summer of 2022 after landing a $350 million investment from Andreessen Horowitz, who is also known as A16z, a big Silicon Valley venture firm.
The 639-apartment Society Las Olas property, which will be the first to officially launch under the Flow banner in 2024, is one of several Flow owns and is already home to tenants and staff.
Ben Bergman, of Business Insider, was the first journalist to step inside the Fort Lauderdale property, noting “When I walked into the lobby of Society Las Olas, I felt like I was entering a WeWork”.
He noted there were neon signs on the wall, colourful furniture, soft lighting and lush greenery.
“I was told later that the design predated Flow,” Bergman said.
“Flow, I was assured, is planning a warmer, more contemporary redesign in the coming months.”
Amenities are standard and include an outdoor garden, a pool and the development of an App that will aid the resident experience, including a spot for messages between renters, maintenance requests and virtual keys for the lifts and apartments.
Earlier this year, Neumann sat down with financial backers Marc Andreessen and David Ulevitch to reveal more detail on Flow, outlining its “four pillars”.
Those pillars consist of a property management company to manage day-to-day operations; a real estate management company that holds the asset and a financial services company.
The final pillar is a “mechanism that’s going to take some of the value and share it with the value creators”.
Not only did Neumann fail to provide any more detail on the tenants equity share at that time, but the world is still none the wiser.
But, according to Bergman’s piece, Flow has already improved living standards at the Society Las Olas property, unlike traditional apartment complexes landlords and third-party management companies who have become complacent when it comes to maintenance.
“We’re trying to flip that on its head,” Adam Amar, who’s part of Flow’s experience and community team, told Business Insider.
“We’re being extremely focused on residents.”
That has included cleaning common areas more often, opening a poolside restaurant, increasing security, completely refurbishing the gym and replacing a lone uniformed doorman with five friendly faces in the resident experience lounge.
Flow is yet to announce the launch of its other properties, which span more than 4000 apartments in total.
