Update on the Radish Sale

A bunch of you have been asking how the Radish sale is going, so I figured I'd pull back the curtain.

We announced the sale in February, offers are due June 15th, and the in-between has been a lot of commotion! Here's the honest update — what's working, what's awkward, and what we still don't know.

We've had close to 500 people tour the property. Lesson #1: most tour-goers aren't buyers — maybe a few per 100-person tour day are seriously considering it. Most are tourists. Easy tell: serious buyers ask about the HVAC system. Tourists ask how we handle conflict and run our food system.

Getting to show people our lifestyle: For years we've tried to explain what Radish feels like — and words always fall short. Tours have been different. People walk through the gate, see kids running between houses while parents drink coffee on someone else's porch, and just get it in 30 seconds. We should have been doing this all along.

Media coverage: Fox News came over to interview us for a TV segment, and the SF Standard did a piece. A real estate influencer created a viral post that got 300k+ likes (social media is wild…). All in all, an already-very-public home got a lot more public. Every week I have someone tell me “have you heard about this place in Oakland?” Friends moms all seem to know about it (dads still are clueless).

Glow-ups: We used the sale as a forcing function to finally do real photoshoots, videoshoots, and resident interviews. The regret: we should have been doing this every year. Tip for any community: hire a photographer for a day-in-the-life. You'll cherish it forever — don't wait until you're selling.

Explaining why we are leaving (”okay where’s the drama??!!?”): People assume something must have gone wrong because we’re selling. They treat it as a datapoint to confirm whatever they already believed about communal living — that it’s unsustainable, that people burn out, that the dream always sours. In reality, it’s been a huge success and every single person is continuing in one of the three new post-Radish communities that are forming.

Pricing: There are no comps. No Zestimate. No existing market for “custom-built friend compound.” We landed on a price range of $4-6m (~$600k–$850k per home), which is uncomfortably wide — but honestly, we don’t know if it’ll close closer to $4m or $6m.

Looky-loos: It’s surprisingly hard to tell a serious buyer from someone who just wants to see the place they read about online. We’ve revised our intake process several times to filter out the tourists without scaring off the real ones. Here’s our latest intake form, which more explicitly asks people about their financial means. We regret not asking people more explicitly earlier in the process.

Saying goodbye while still living here: We’re hosting tours in the same kitchens where we still cook dinner together every week. It’s a weird liminal space — half real estate transaction, half slow-motion farewell. Some days it feels like throwing your own wake.

We don’t know! Are we going to have 100 bids? 0 bids? We have no idea at this point.

Our best guesses for the eventual buyer:

A “compound for my people” buyer: 1-2 wealthy households (perhaps tech jackpot winners) buying the whole thing to rent to their inner circle. Most communities don't start with a fully-formed group — they start with one or two households brave (or rich) enough to plant the flag and move friends or family in over time.

An existing friend group: 5-7 households who’ve been dreaming about this for years and want to skip ahead 3-4 years of searching, designing, and building. Probably the most natural fit. One archetype we’ve seen is existing coliving communities seeing the need to upgrade space for the future (usually for kids…).

A multi-generational family: Grandparents, adult kids, cousins, all on one parcel. We’ve had a few come through tours.

A mission-driven operator: A nonprofit, foundation, or coliving company that wants a turnkey community without spending years stitching one together.

If you read this and thought “wait, that’s me” — start here or email hello@buyradish.com. Offers are due June 15th.