And then came coliving…
Seemingly out of nowhere, the co-revolution has gained a new sibling. It’s 2019 and coliving is the big term in the real estate industry. Since PwC voted coliving as the #1 real estate trend of 2019, it’s been taken over by mainstream media and has become the buzz of numerous podcasts and magazines around the topic. Overnight, it would seem coliving has become the hype that coworking was ten years ago.
Through its shiny presence, it’s being sold as a combination of living, community and life-enhancing experience. Coliving has been positioned as the 21st century’s answer to a new form of living that will help to tackle today’s loneliness epidemic and real estate crisis. But like other sectors, the light of pure brightness might turn off if its power source is not sustainable.
As the critical thought leaders of tomorrow, it is our duty to be thoughtful about a movement that is being built, not only supporting but also guiding its growth towards a vision that we believe in: for, by, and to humans. The following article is going to shine a light not only on what coliving means, but what it can truly become, and what might stop it from getting there if the industry doesn’t learn from other co-movements.
What coliving means and how it is interpreted
One of the dangers of early industries that are getting traction is that terms are being used to follow the trend instead of setting it. While a few actors have tried to establish an industry standard for coliving’s definition, the term is being used on housing models that range from self-organized flat-sharing to purpose-built large-scale facilities over to hotels that are in search for rebranding.
To start, there is no harmony on what the “co” from coliving should mean and where it comes from. Instead of accepting to use the prefix as its institutionalized definition for “jointly; mutually”, coliving brands try to define coliving centered around community, collaboration, communal, or connected living. Yet the only commonality in all current definitions is that more than two unrelated people share common amenities within one housing structure. What that excludes is any type of family-centered living, compounds, cohousing facilities with self-contained private housing units, and general apartment complexes.
Internationally, there are certain camps of coliving definitions that are starting to form. The main ones are those that define coliving as “for-profit”, meaning differentiating between coliving as a service (in which a company owns at least partly real estate and/or operations management) versus coliving as a self-organized living arrangement (in which ownership is shared); those that define coliving as “primary residence”, removing any type of communal living form that is accidental, such as camping, festivals, retreats, hostels or guest houses; those that include the aspect of having a “strong community” to coliving, although it is hard to measure the strength of unity within people living together; and those that add the layer of “intentionality” to communal living, claiming that coliving needs to improve the quality-of-life for its residents. The only addition that will most probably be widely accepted by all actors is the addition of “freely chosen”, excluding any involuntary types of communal living, such as prisons, military duties, or hospitals.
Coliving = is a freely chosen form of primary residence living offered as a service by for-profit companies that accommodates three or more biologically unrelated people and improves the quality-of-life for its residents among others through the presence of a strong community.
In short, coliving is still not narrowed down. Even its spelling - from “co-living” to “coliving” and “CoLiving” - remains open. The next decade is leaving room for coliving operators to set their own definitions and promote it, and those with the highest leverage will set its initial tone.
A brief wrinkle in time: a short review of the history and emergence of coliving
While many believe that coliving is a new phenomena, history shows the opposite. In fact, humanity went through waves in which coliving was popular.
Take the example of boarding homes in the 1950s. Between one third and one half of nineteenth-century urban residents either took in boarders or were boarders themselves. For example, the Jeanne D’Arc Residence in Chelsea offered a home for “friendless French girls” who immigrated for work as seamstresses or caregivers. One of the reasons is that boarding homes were targeting new city arrivers, similarly to today’s coliving spaces targeting people who undergo life transitions or changes in homebase, and in both past and present there is a rush in terms of urban mobility. The decay of the boarding homes was eventually due to stricter regulations, higher buying power, and a move towards the city outskirts that made boarding homes obsolete starting the 1970s.
We can also look at how large coliving facilities existed already in the early 20th century. For example, North London’s “Isokon” project in the 1930’s offered individual rent, communal spaces, and services around the coliving space. Nevertheless, the project failed and similar concepts were started again in the late 2000’s, such as The Collective in London.
And those are not the only examples. Whether communes, student housing, squatting and guardianship, flatsharing or non-commercial intentional communities (such as religious ones), coliving as a way of living has been part of our society for centuries. The question for the 21st century is whether coliving services will only focus on people’s fundamental needs, such as affordable housing and easy access to real estate - or whether coliving operators will take a more intentional approach of offering a frame and desire to build strong, life-enhancing communities.
Learning from the co-movements to predict coliving’s future
When looking ten years back from now, which direction will coliving have taken? That will depend on the key drivers behind coliving operations, how resident demand responds to coliving platforms.
Taking the example of the coworking movement that started around ten years ago, the rise of some “big fish” like WeWork popularized the term and boosted investment of capital, acceptance from the public sector and larger corporations. At the same time, it ignited a counter-movement of grassroots coworking spaces that aim to bring back coworking to its essence of community and human connection.
Coliving is likely to face similar challenges. Two major coliving company investments beyond one billion dollars at the end of 2018 ignited the race for growth and market penetration. The first coliving merger recently occurred. And cities such as New York are starting initiatives to support the private sector in that endeavor.
We need to claim that this growth might come at the cost of developing models that are scalable, yet not fine-tuned to long-term product/market fit. For example, one aspect of coliving that tends to be overlooked is the importance of community-building and the feeling of connection that one finds in self-organized communes or humanized coworking spaces. Current efforts are put into developing the real estate and financial side of the business while neglecting the user experience aspect, for which ultimately residents will hold coliving spaces accountable for.
May the hope for intentionality within spaces and coopetition within the coliving industry guide our observation of coliving’s development. It is now up to its actors to define its trajectory.
A timeline of coliving
Coliving existed without being known
- Late 1800s - Stewart’s Home for Working Women: a 1500 coliving project failed due to too high pricing
- 1930s - Creation of the Isokon project in North London; creation of the Kensal House project in London
- 1950s - Start of the decline of US boarding homes
- 1960s - Rise of intentional living and communes in San Francisco
- 1970s - Popularization of cohousing in Denmark
Coliving emerges as an industry
- 2010 - Popularity of hacker and startup houses in San Francisco
- 2015 - Creation of Common, Outpost Club, Roam and Bedly in NYC; coliving startup Campus closes its doors after major funding rounds
- 2016 - The Collective opens its first purpose-built location in Old Oak, London
- 2017 - First coliving industry organization created (Co-Liv)
- 2018 - Coliving operators create an operators-only community (Coliving Hub)
- 2019 - First two major investments above $1b into coliving companies; launch of the first coliving podcast (Coliving Code Show), book (the Coliving Code), and magazine (IMAGINE); first major coliving scandal and public outreach (Dublin)
September 2019 - we are here now
Passing the innovation stage
- 2019 - Coliving becomes its own asset class
- 2020 - Coliving gets adopted by AP as its own term (without the hyphen); coliving platform startups emerge (and fail) at an increasing rate. Who will be the AirBnb of coliving? First coliving for families opens (KIN); first multigenerational coliving opens; a major VC-funded coliving space shuts down and creates tension in the industry
The rise of the “big fish”
- 2021 - Intensified mergers and acquisitions; first entire modular-built coliving space to open; first major funded companies to offer large-scale affordable coliving services; the rise of coliving-specialized services of architecture, design, consulting and marketing
- 2022 - First city to change its regulations to support coliving developments; first coliving space to offer individualized furniture for each of its tenants; documentary on coliving; coliving spaces start using different terms to differentiate from unsuccessful spaces, including the original “communal living” terms; first incubator dedicated to coliving spaces created
- 2023 - Rise of coliving as a lifestyle brand that offers all-inclusive life services (including life insurance, work and live space, etc.); first for-profit coliving space to open with co-ownership options for residents
The rise of local and large-scale projects
- 2024 - First “big fish” to crash; first government-run coliving space to open; coliving becomes a financially subsidized living option by a G8 government entity
- 2026 - First charter city built around the model of “urban village”
- 2029 - The rise of an anti-global coliving movement: movement towards local grassroots coliving spaces