LiveNearFriends

My name is Phil, the creator of LiveNearFriends. I live near within a short walk of a dozen of friends. We eat meals together, care for each other, and now are raising kids together. Living near friends has made my life joyful and easy. I want others to experience the same (with less work than it took me). So I created LiveNearFriends. Living near a single friend or family member can dramatically increase your happiness. One Harvard study reckons up to 50% happier. We make it easy to find both *rental or sale* homes nearby friends. You and your friends get alerts when homes come available within a 5-minute walk We also make the coordination piece of this fun and less awkward. The "LiveNearMe" link is the invitation to find a home near a friend. They can subscribe to housing alerts within a 5-minute walk that match their unique criteria. 5-minutes is the magic low-friction distance that makes social relationships easy. You can pop over in your crocs. Or pajamas. Or carrying a baby without worrying about that pesky car seat. You can stop in just to see if someone’s around without thinking twice. Research shows: The benefits of living near friends starts to drop off after 1/2 a mile. And we truly want you to be happy. So we focus on 5-minutes. Matt Damon lives near Ben Affleck. Think of how many Oscars you might win if you live near one of your buds.

This is clever. I wish all my friends would move within 5 minutes of my home. Alternatively, it would be a dream to have a vacation/nomad destination with all my favorite people.

I’ve been a fan of living near friends for my whole life: I grew up on that magic kind of street where we knew our neighbors and I could play with other kids on the block. The older I get the more I realize how foundational that wider network was for my happiness and I think also made it easier for my parents to raise me. I’ve been living in communal houses for the last eight years and absolutely love living under the same roof as my friends but as we get older and people start to have kids, a lot of folks do want their own space for a variety of reasons. Focusing on living <5 min walk away makes a lot of sense and I love that there’s a tool to make this easier now!