Coliving in its latest form as a sub sector of the private rental sector with a focus on community and convenience emerged roughly 10 years ago in the UK and US. Some of the first prominent media mentions of coliving can be found from 2015, and now 10 years on this is an exciting period for coliving as it reaches its maturity and consolidation phases. 

Since the creation of coliving and its major players a decade ago, we can now see that most coliving currently evolves around four main models:

Nomad coliving 

This type of coliving is catered to digital nomads and remote workers who are location independent, often working around the world and staying in nomad coliving spaces for a few weeks to a few months at a time in places like Bali, Canary Islands, the French Alps, and even in more rural coliving communities like ROORAL (Spain) or Selgars (UK). From a ‘colivers’ point of view, this may be the model that most are familiar with. 

Latest market insights: Outsite raises over 300 million USD in funding and opens the first digital nomad hotel in Porto and the launch of Nomio, ‘the world’s first Nomad Paradise’.

Residential housing-styled shared living 

These renovated townhomes in central urban locations usually host between 15-20 longer term residents with average stays of around 12-18 months. These fully furnished and all-in-one homes often offer spacious private bedrooms and smaller but ample amenities and common spaces. Some operators have slightly smaller bedrooms in order to accommodate more common spaces and emphasis communal meals and activities.

Latest market insights: La Casa announced they have a profitable business model and has scaled to over 50 communities this year. Their 2025 impact study also shows that 95% of residents feel less lonely after living in La Casa, and compared to the national average in France of 53% of 16-34 year olds feeling lonely, only 7% feel lonely in La Casa homes.  

Mid-scale retrofits

These include renovations of existing housing, hospitality or office stock into medium-sized coliving communities of 50-100 units with moderate amenities. Operators like Habyt and Colonies have scaled significantly over the years thanks to this model, where a simple retrofit of existing assets allows them to add light-touch design and FF&E improvements, alongside their own visual identity and design to include a unique and convenient experience for their residents.

Latest market insights: some more intensive adaptive re-use projects have taken place such as Jumo by Colonies in Paris, an office-to-resi conversion of 96 units in the 15th arrondissement, and another similar conversion from HUB’s Cornerstone project currently in development in the Barbican Estate, London.

Purpose-built large-scale shared living 

Larger-scale coliving schemes, referred to as purpose-built shared living (PBSL) in some markets like the UK (as defined by the Greater London Authority), often have around 250-500 bedrooms and are highly amenitized including cinema rooms, ‘master chef’ kitchens and large gyms and coworking spaces. Operators often collaborate with investors and developers to forward fund and build the schemes, and do not own the spaces but operate on management or lease agreements.

Latest market insights: coliving brand Node partnered up with Bain Capital and local development partners to develop flex living assets in Madrid, Barcelona and Madrid. They then sold 3 assets to Greystar after only 5 months of the first asset successfully opening, one of the most prominent sales in the coliving industry in the last years. This also followed their Node Brixton sale last year to the University of Cambridge via an account managed by Canadian manager Realstar.

The following sections of this article explore the current state of the coliving market, its core ESG benefits, updates from key markets across the EU, and which coliving innovations are helping to consolidate and establish coliving amongst the wider housing industry. 

​​Key coliving ESG benefits

Coliving as an asset class and as individual communities can provide a range of benefits to their residents, staff, local areas and beyond. Some key benefits of the coliving asset class include delivering much needed homes in pressured housing markets, urban and rural regeneration, community building, environmental sustainability and resident wellbeing. 

New research by Conscious Coliving found that coliving can help to deliver social regeneration of local areas by:

• Providing spaces, resources and events which are available to the local communities they are located in,
• Contributing to affordable housing provision through affordable homes, discount market rent homes, or all inclusive rent which includes cost savings on services like gyms and coworking spaces, 
• Attracting urban professionals and key workers who may choose to stay in the area longer term and creating good quality local jobs.

Coliving can also enhance social connection and resident wellbeing, which contributes to healthy and happy neighbourhoods. It does this through:

• Regular events which include engagement with local neighbourhoods, volunteering opportunities, and a range of activities to suit different interests and needs,
• Design which facilitates social interaction through inviting and varied communal areas and the creation of natural ‘collision’ points and opportunities for interaction,
• The practices of resident-facing staff, including encouraging residents to socialise, and taking time and care to look after resident wellbeing and safety.

Coliving has a strong potential to achieve high levels of social impact, and should be a standard component of a healthy housing mix in urban areas, which is demonstrated further in the sections below.

Market demand/growth

The coliving industry has had a significant rise in market demand and supply in the last 5-10 years, often compared to the rise of the PBSA and BTR markets 10 years ago. Prominent markets around the world include European, Asian and North American markets, and data over the years has shown that the top markets in the EU include UK, Spain, France, Germany and Netherlands. Below we share some updates from market data collated by leading coliving operators and real estate players from the three main markets in the EU: 

UK 

According to new data released in February 2025 from Savills, the UK coliving market has seen an 87% increase in planning applications in 2024 vs 2023, a record year, with 9,000 coliving units submitted and 6,200 permissions.The growth pipeline includes 9,000 operational coliving units and 5,500 under construction. The report shows that the latest generation of coliving schemes have seen strong lease-up rates and high occupancy levels, underpinned by a varied tenant pool.

Spain 

According to the 2024 annual report from ATLAS, the build-to-rent (BTR) market in Spain has gained momentum in recent years, with deliveries multiplying year after year from just around 500 units nationally in 2019 to approximately 10,000 units delivered during 2023. The pace of deliveries was only slowed down in 2021 due to the initial impact of the pandemic. However, once initial difficulties were overcome, the pace increased thanks to an increasingly extensive pipeline, including 10,448 in Madrid, 2,248 in Barcelona and just over 1,000 in Valencia. In most markets coliving is seen as a subsector of the BTR and then data shared by ATLAS can be a good indicator of the growth of the Spanish coliving industry in the next few years.

France

According to the 2024 Xerfi coliving report, over the past few years, the number of coliving operators has grown significantly in France, reaching nearly 60 operators. At the same time, the number of rooms available in the industry increased by 70% between 2021 and 2023. Institutional investors have also shown strong and sustained interest in this asset class. In 2023 alone, investment volumes in coliving exceeded €430 million in France, with Xerfi calculating just over 14,000 operational beds in 2024.

Latest Coliving Innovations 

1) Affordability

Affordability in coliving has been widely discussed and the consensus is that coliving rooms provide a relative affordability compared to traditional studios in the same area. Savills data found that coliving is on average 7% cheaper than traditional studios and some operators like Folk in the UK offer rooms at 10-20% beneath the local market. Operators are also offering below market units thanks to some innovations including renting unfurnished rooms or ‘amenity-light’ facilities. Some other innovations in affordability in regards to coliving include the following: 

Yardhouse, Wood Lane, London

This 209-bed co-living scheme, developed by HUB and Bridges Fund Management in partnership with Women’s Pioneer Housing (WPH), and forward-funded by City Developments Limited (CDL), will also deliver 60 affordable homes for single women, as well as WPH’s new head office.

Folk Sunday Mills, Earsfield, London

At Folk Sunday Mills, which is operated by urbanbubble, managed by DTZ Investors and designed by Assael Architecture, one third of the 315 units are priced at DMR (discount market rent). The building rents discounted studios to two Ukrainian refugees, five young adults who have left foster care, and has one studio for on-call doctors from nearby St George’s Hospital.  

Urban Campus, Colombes-Stade, France

Colombes-Stade represents the newest addition to Urban Campus’ expanding portfolio of affordable housing assets. This new development features 116 residential units, with prices set approximately 10% below market rates, reinforcing their commitment to providing accessible housing options in France’s competitive market. The property includes 1-4 bedroom apartments, a fitness room, multipurpose event room, coworking area, playroom and monthly community events. Contrary to most coliving communities, this development is unfurnished, which allows for the affordable room prices. Urban Campus also have new properties dedicated to families, such as their multifamily apartment complexes in Marseille and Saint Louis in France.

2) Diversification

Coliving is an innovative asset that has been inspiring (and been inspired by) parallel industries such as hospitality, BTR and student accommodation (aka PBSA). The market has inspired other asset classes to hybridize their products such as the ‘flex living’ typology that mixes short- and long-term stay. Also referred to as ‘Coliving Hotels’ these innovative models provide guests and residents the flexibility and convenience to drop in for a few nights or stay for weeks / months at a time. Particularly appealing to the modern nomad, these hybrid models have picked up since remote working has somewhat become the norm post-pandemic. Coliving operators are also taking a page from the books of industries and diversifying their portfolios to include schemes that offer affordable homes, PBSA or even multifamily options. 

 

Some examples include: 

La Casa, France

La Casa has been prototyping a new offer and expanding into intergenerational houses called Les Grandes Casa. These ‘XXL houses’ located in close proximity to Paris and public transportation, are catered for both active seniors and younger professionals. These homes include the right balance between spacious private quarters and comfortably equipped communal spaces, especially fitting the needs of older demographics. They are also launching a new home for students in the 11eme in Paris, which will be their biggest home yet with 63 rooms, contributing homes to a largely under-supplied student accommodation sector in France.  

Bikube, Lyon, France

Bikube, the new shared living brand from VINCI Immobilier Résidences Gérées opened their first property in the 3eme of Lyon last November. They are operating a flex living model as a ‘Coliving Hotel’. The community has 144 studios, 1-bedroom and 2-bedroom apartments and over 1000m2 of shared spaces (about 6-7 m2 per long-term resident) with thematic floors based on color schemes and varied design styles. Bikube offers a ‘medium-stay’ option for stays of between a week and a month, and a ‘long-stay’ option for stays of over a month. They also offer overnight hotel stays / short-term options. All of this with an elegant coworking space, restaurant / café and events opened to the local community. 

POHA House, Germany 

POHA House (POHA) is a ‘co-space’ operator with a ‘Live-Work-Stay’ ethos. Members can live in a POHA House, work from a POHA Office, book their short-term stay at POHA Stay or choose a mix of all three. With buildings in Aachen and Munster and close to 600 operational rooms and over 600 more in the pipeline, POHA is becoming one of the leaders in the German shared living and coworking markets with plans to expand to other European cities and beyond. With these flexible models at their core, POHA’s mission is to provide a range of high-quality furnished flats, flexible offices and community spaces that offer comfort, eco-conscious design and an inspiring community to create homes that inspire community, comfort and sustainability.

Design mention: Cutwork x Citylifer, Rotterdam 

In collaboration with Cutwork The Citylifer, a Dutch coliving startup, has opened its first Nomad Studio in Rotterdam city center, introducing an innovative multifunctional studio that is uniquely catered to young adults and modern nomads. The fully-furnished studio is 25m² and features several smart and modular designs like the “High Five”, “Genkan Entrance”, and the “Pivot Wardrobe”, allowing for maximizing the use of space, these studios combine practicality with modern living.

ESG mention: Vitanovae 

In 2022, Vitanovae completed a €1.5 million fundraising round and welcomed a new impact investor, Macif Impact ESS, who invested €500,000 through its investment vehicle, Macif Impact ESS. This fund aims to finance and support impact-driven and social economy organizations in their scaleup phases. Following an initial €1 million crowdfunding round with LITA.co, Macif’s integration into its capital allowed Vitanovae to plan the launch of new, socially innovative shared living spaces. Vitanovae offers rents that are 33% more affordable, energy-efficient buildings, and impact-driven community spaces like their shared kitchen opened to the neighbourhood and local chefs, Cuisine de Camille. 

 

For more discussions and insights on coliving, don’t miss ‘The Coliving Era’ workshop at MIPIM this year on Tuesday March 11th from 11am-12:30pm at the Asset Class Stage. 

This article was written by Matt Lesniak of Conscious Coliving in collaboration with Gui Perdrix of Art of Co and Co-Liv members.