Maker House: 2021 Finances

Mkr.house is a community of makers in Pittsburgh.

We believe in open source and transparency. To help others create communities, here are the finances from our first year of operation:

While the net loss for year 1 is sizable, many of the expenses are unique to the year of construction. For example, $150k of the mortgage was the downpayment, and the $40k for solar and powerwalls should generate revenue for many decades.

To get a picture of the long term finances, we can look at the operational (annual) expenses and income from 2021:

Operationally, the house is losing $2,300 per year. But that’s not the full picture — we’re also building equity in the house as we pay off the mortgage:

Even with the slight operational loss, the house should breakeven about when the 15 year mortgage closes (when compared to investing the original $300k in the market at 6.5%/yr post-tax and paying rent)

Of course, the outcome depends heavily on the real estate market. If the market varies even slightly from the historic ~2%/yr, the results will differ dramatically. At a static 0%/yr market, it would take more than 30 years…