EC07: On Individual Home Ownership, Fundraising Trends & Developing Coliving News

🔁📝Last week, we reflected on the biggest coliving trends and 2023’s major milestones. If you need a quick refresher, take a look at the link below, where I break down those concepts in detail:

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How Will We Create Solutions That Enable Individual Ownership?

The question of “how to finance and enable real estate ownership by individuals with low to (even beyond) medium income” is a hard one to tackle.

Several angles can be improved, tweaked, and innovated in: from the lending and banking side (with solutions that create lower yet more stable interest rates) to the regulatory side (many countries don’t make it easy for alternative models such as cooperative housing to exist and operate).

One country that stands out here is Switzerland, whereby housing cooperatives play a big role. As you can read in this report:

“Switzerland’s 2,000 co-ops provide 5% of Swiss housing stock. 38% of the sector is in Zurich. The average-sized co-op owns 90 homes, but the largest owns 5,000 homes. Recent co-op developments in Zurich – growing on the back of a strong social movement in the 1990s – have tended to be larger and supported by the City of Zurich.”

This is impressive. The financial aspect has been professionalized around the cooperative model too, with the creation of banks specialized and known for working with co-ops.

Yet not every country makes cooperative housing easy. This is where you have to create your own workarounds.

Take, for example, the Mietshäuser Syndikat (MHS), a cooperative non-commercial joint venture in Germany that helps communities acquire long-term affordable living space via a legal, collective property arrangement.

They offer to set up a housing cooperative model and have done so with 177 properties serving a total of 4,000+ residents.

Highly recommend digging deeper with an inside look with this article:

What other solutions are out there?

1. Ownifyhelps first-time homebuyers acquire their own property by bringing in socially conscious investors, promising low (2%) down payments for the buyer and passive income for the investor.
2. Arrivedis a different online platform, allowing private investors to select properties, buy fractional ownership (shares), and receive long-term dividends.

In France, the startup NeoProprioenables access to partial ownership by partnering up with institutional investors, allowing buyers to live in the property and with a possibility to ultimately also buy the property in full. See how it works here(in French).

These are just some ideas around how we can improve the housing and ownership situation. We hope that 2024 will bring forward more coliving spaces that want to also tackle this problem, and more entrepreneurs who innovate in the sector!

This Month’s Recommended Read

One of our favorite reads over the break: the Case Study of Template House, an intentional community supporting folks coming out of long-term incarceration.

Some Developing News

After announcing in the last editionthat Disney is entering the housing and development world with the creation of thousands of units, Universal just announced its planto develop a 1,000-unit mixed-use development, set to open in 2026, that promises to give tenants who work in the service industry a short commute to the constellation of tourist attractions and hotels nearby.

Called Catchlight Crossingsand built in partnership with local developer Wendover Housing Partners, the project broke ground in November.

And finally, after covering in the last edition the first pictures of Adam Neumann’s Flow coliving project , the company already gets bad press - with apparent financial instabilities.

Two of the venture’s earliest acquisitions are already facing cash flow problems.

And who will fix it? Well, of course, the community! And how? Through crowdfunding:

“Twofunds have been created on crowdfunding platform Yieldstreet were opened to address a “cash flow deficit” at separate Nashville properties bought by Neumann’s family firm Nazare Capital, according to Yieldstreet’s site. Those assets were then transferred to Flow.”

And this is just the beginning. Let us see how this story continues - and whether Apple TV already has the teaser for Season 2…

PS: Final news about Neumann - his former company WeWork just had to close down its emblematic Capitol Hill coworkingspace after filing for bankrupcy late 2023.

On Fundraising & Finances

Here are the highlights of the past two weeks:

➔ Enter Colivingraised an undisclosed amountto continue its growth towards 550 beds in 2024. Enter is Barcelona’s oldest and most established coliving operator, led by Erwin Groenendijk.

➔ Sharing Co, a short-stay accommodation and coworking space provider, raises 300m euros to continue its acquisitionsof buildings across Spain. In its current portfolio of six buildings in Madrid and Málaga (with a total of 200 apartments), the company only owns 10% of its real estate - a number it decided to increase and become more asset-heavy.

➔ Joivy- the coliving giant which now includes the properties from former coliving brands DoveVivo, ALTIDO, and Chez Nestor - closes 2023 at 110m euros in revenue.

➔ Coliving operators seem in rather good shape in India and desire to expand, backed up with high growth numbers post-pandemic(and mainly in 2023). For example, Stanzacoliving reports:

“This past calendar year, we witnessed a significant surge in our occupancies across the country and a record year for us with substantial growth of 5-6x in revenue vis-a-vis the previous year."

Other Indian coliving operators such as Settlaim to introduce 5,000 new units in 2024, more than double compared to last year.

On Growth & New Brands

➔ French coliving operator Shariesopens a new coliving residency in Massy(South of Paris) with 5 apartments and a total of up to 40 residents. The project was financed by Audacia, an investment firm known for its coliving enthusiasm.

➔ Kosy Livingis redeveloping the Crown and Sceptre pub – the topic of The Clash’s’ song ‘Stay Free’ – into a new coliving development.

➔ A new coliving space just opened in a beautiful Italian village in Puglia: La Vita Sukha. Congratulations to our friends Jarka Kunovaand Liz Cirelli- another great example of how two passionate individuals have made their dream come true!

➔ A new coliving space has launched in California focussed on affordable senior living. The mission of Ratio Colivingis to fix the senior living crisis by creating coliving for senior citizens with food delivery, onsite nurses, and A.I. environment enhancements.

It’s truly a unique mix of components of our time. We’re curious to see how this project turns out - especially seeing it go through different stages and enhancements on the tech front.

➔ International coliving brand lyfexpands to new destinations with eight new property signings, including in Bali, Penang, Sydney and Frankfurt. The coliving brand by Ascott is one of the fastest-growing and large-scale development brands globally.

Everything Else Coliving

➔ Washington has hope for the “coliving bill”, allowing to revive a nearly extinct affordable housing type in Washington cities. It puts in perspective a practice that is actually not new at all:

“Sixty years ago, people in Seattle could rent tiny apartments, just big enough for a bed and a little sitting area. They were cheap, even though they were right in the heart of downtown.”

Want to be featured in the next newsletter? Tag #everythingcoliving on LinkedIn or Twitter for us to find your company updates!

That’s it for this week! We hope you enjoyed and wish you a good weekend,

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🆕 More exciting topics ahead! We’ll dive into interior design trends and digital nomad hotels in EC08, followed by the latest conference trends in EC09.