About the site

Purpose

As a growing sector, the site is an ongoing project to document primarily destinational colivings across the globe — having the goal to become a platform co-op serving the needs of both users and operators, whom actively support the site:

• making spaces easier to find
• building awareness of the sector
• accurately representing typology
• promoting spaces
• supporting efficient operations
• …and identifying trends†

† Did you know that of all the spaces listed 20% have closed down. Not ideal encouragement for anyone starting out with the idea of creating their own coliving — yet isn't actually too terrible! Or that only 5% implement fixed move-in days, something that greatly eases operation…

→ Read about what coliving is and is not.

Origins

At a now defunct coliving in the Canaries where polaroids (yay!) were taken upon arrival and strung up with pegs.

Hi! I'm Jacob, I've been involved in the coliving movement since its early days following the emergence of coworking — not only did I start Coliving Community with its intent to support operators, compiling its database (manually!), I also founded probably the first ever blended+hybrid coliving+coworking space back in 2010.

Before this, there were really only intentional communities (quite niche), then with the rise of tech in SF, hacker houses (still quite niche!); whence emerged lifestyle design leading to the rise of digital nomads. The turning point for destinational spaces (purposeful and inclusive), yet just a small segment of the coliving market.

After a long stint with a marcomms agency during the dot-com years in London, I myself have been a semi-itinerant digital nomad and supporter of coworking, having an interest in emergent lifestyles, space planning, and hospitality, so moving into coliving struck me as moving up to the next level!

Having visited quite a few spaces at perhaps the wrong times even wearing the same shirt, I've ended up on their webpages.🙈

I departed my experiment in hospitality after 4 years, returning to tech, just as digital nomading was starting to take off. It occured to me it'd be nice if it were easier to find and more accurately identify their features. So of course I created a very basic version of this directory, slowly building it out.

Continuing my experiments in the sector, I started a coliving crowdfunding campaign specifically (and unusually) offering coownership with reoccuring use as a co-operative, instead of just investment, this received suprisingly robust response considering it was an unnecessarily outlandish plan to renovate an old textile mill in the Portuguese mountains! Being just before the pandemic, I never really properly picked it up after having uh, spent enough. I do hope to open up a smaller-scale acquisition to backers using a mix of investment and use stakes still under the Hub House brand that I'd created, potentially to include an affiliated network of properties.

→ Read my occasional writings about coliving on Medium.

Focus

Currently in building out the directory, expanding to leverage cross-promotion whilst also providing functionality that improves operating and staying at colivings.

Unlike with other directory and booking sites, users are not prevented from visiting an operator's own site, nor is there a lock-in for operators — all spaces are promoted so that prospective members can find out the most about them.

Commercial sites are driven by business imperitives, thus you'll find that coliving.com mostly lists house shares and even just shared 2-bed apartments which have nothing in common with community let alone coliving, and others whilst better aligned, can include guesthouses and such, as there's more of them than colivings to generate booking fees and pay subscriptions.