Coliving professionals gathering - are you out there?

Question

This post is meant to bring all the people active in Coliving together on Biggerpockets to be exchanging knowledge and helping each other out. Scrolling through the forums there are multiple posts - a BP podcast regarding coliving, some deals and projects done applying the coliving concept, trend discussions, etc.

Let's combine all the knowledge here and see how we can learn from each other.

Are you a player in the coliving world - share it. Are you interested in the coliving concept and have trends to share for now or towards the future - let the group know. Tips, tricks, ideas, worst case examples, or any of this kind - add it in this post!

We ourselves are managing 150 rooms in Spain, Europe (specifically Barcelona and Valencia at the moment) spread across 25 properties, are excited about the topic and planning to go 10X from here across the whole of Spain. Looking to get inspired by the other players out there.

Lia Martinez · Answer

@Erwin Groenendijk Thanks for posting this. I've been keeping my eye on coliving within the BP forums for years now and while there are some people like you and I who are active investors in coliving, there are still too few of us on BP.

This may be because BP is based in the US and coliving has yet to really hit the US with the full force that we are seeing in Europe and India. But I think that will change rapidly in the next few years and (hopefully) lenders will begin to see it as its own asset class. For now, most active US coliving investors still need to be creative to get financing, especially when trying to scale up.

Luckily, there are some good groups out there dedicated towards cultivating a coliving community of operators, developers, and investors. Co-Liv has great weekly meetups and podcasts. The Coliving Hub is another good, active group. Both groups had annual conferences until the pandemic.

The Coliving Code podcast is another useful source of information, as is the Common Knowledge series put on by Common Coliving in NYC and free to access on Crowdcast. The Coliving Insights magazine and Conscious Coliving consultants also put out some great reading material and weekly newsletters. There are more, but I wont go into the weeds. Just wanted to give people who are interested some places to start diving in.

Mindy Jensen · Answer

Hi Erwin.

What is coliving? I can create a coliving forum, if that's what you're asking?

Lia Martinez · Answer

@Erwin Groenendijk Apologies for the delay, I took a month break from work to visit family in Peru.

It would be nice to boost coliving and I would certainly read anything that others publish. But to be honest, I'm not huge fan of writing anything longer than a few sentences. I guess that's part of why engineering was appealing as a profession.

There is certainly enough coliving content being put out right now by other companies; I wonder if we could/should re-post coliving content that's been shared elsewhere? Or perhaps just link to their publications and articles?

Lia Martinez · Answer

@Mindy Jensen I would suggest googling "coliving" and seeing what comes up. You would be surprised at how much is happening worldwide in both residential and commercial real estate related to coliving. There have even been books put out on the subject. Check out X-communities' ground-up development being built here in Denver near Coors Field: https://xliving.co/communities....

It is different from House Hacking in a variety of ways. Coliving is geared towards "real estate as a service" similar to coworking for office space. It also includes a large Community component, which House Hacking does not include at all.

Similar to what @Erwin Groenendijk was saying, Europeans tend to view to view it from a commercial housing/student housing perspective. But here in the US, coliving is also commonly applied to residential properties (such as mine here in Colorado). If you would like to chat more about this offline or come see one of the houses, please let me know!

I agree, it is a good way to get your foot in the door as a first-time investor similar to House Hacking. But it's a bit more work to develop the community, in all honesty. So it may not be for everyone. Erwin is also right that when scaled in multifamily, it can bring great returns because the $$ per sq ft is higher (as are the amenity and management costs).

Erwin Groenendijk · Answer

@Lia Martinez, yes these are great platforms. What about pushing here and there to create a place on BP where all coliving information is bundled.

Hi @Mindy Jensen, do you see potential in this? If you have some tips on how to structurally set this up, I am happy to take on the work. There will be a lot of information to help the community out with a way of investing that still seems to be receiving too little attention.

Erwin Groenendijk · Answer

@Nick Hulsebos you can have a look at Artof.Co and subscribe to their newsletter Everything Coliving. They are bringing the coliving industry together across all continents. We were on their podcast recently talking about ways to finance a coliving business, for those starting and further along the road.

They also recently opened an incubator program for people wanting to get into the coliving business with one of the modules that is on business models if I'm not mistaken.

Nick Hulsebos · Answer

I am looking for business model information on Co-living, Who is teaching it

Erwin Groenendijk · Answer

And what a day with big news regarding coliving with Quarters..

Lia Martinez · Answer

@Erwin Groenendijk

I'm a member of both groups for many years now. I'm glad you joined! Both have members who are very much the thought leaders of this movement and put out great content.

Erwin Groenendijk · Answer

@Lia Martinez like you said some other platforms are really big on it. Are you part of ColivingHub or Co-Liv? I've been meeting some really interesting people there.

Coliving professionals gathering - are you out there?

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