by Melih Alsaç
With house prices, rents and living costs skyrocketing in today's cities, young professionals, students and digital nomads are looking for more convenient, flexible and social solutions. This is where co-living comes in. Co-living is a new generation housing model that protects individual privacy but supports social life in large, well-equipped common areas.
Key Advantages of Co-Living
Economic Savings:
Co-living is one of the most practical ways to stay on budget amid high rent and home ownership costs. Expenses such as furniture, bills and even cleaning are reduced with co-living. Thus, your home decoration and living expenses are managed at a much lower cost than you could bear alone.
Social Bonding and Community:
Moving to a new city or living alone can make it difficult to build a social circle. Co-living spaces create a natural sense of community through organized events, shared spaces and social activities. This environment allows you to build friendships and expand your professional network.
Flexibility and Comfort:
With short or long-term accommodation options, co-living easily adapts to changing living conditions. With fully equipped and furnished rooms, you can have a comfortable living space in no time and avoid the extra costs of moving.
Networking and Business Opportunities:
Living under the same roof with people from different cultures and professional groups brings with it the exchange of information and new business opportunities. Coworking spaces, meeting rooms and social events offer ideal environments for your professional development.
Sustainable Living:
Encouraging the use of shared resources, co-living supports an environmentally friendly lifestyle by making energy and water consumption efficient. In addition to reducing individual carbon footprints, this model ensures a more balanced use of resources through collective living.
Personal Experience: Co-Living in the UK
The co-living model is quite common in the UK and I have had a few experiences with it. I had the chance to stay in a 35-story building in the Zone 1 region of England, where I was on vacation. While the first 15 floors of the building were hotels and studio apartments, the next 15 floors were dormitory-style rooms designed for people who were just starting out in business life, offering individual living spaces.
The striking point here is that all needs are met through common areas. Basic needs such as clothes, ironing and food are provided in common areas; this situation both increases the quality of life and provides a great advantage in terms of investment value. Rental conversion rates offer -40 higher returns than traditional real estate. This shows that especially construction companies and investors should adopt this model.
In fact, NEF projects were among the first attempts at the co-living concept, which had a promising momentum at the beginning, but this potential was not fully realized afterwards. If such co-living approaches are pioneered when designing real estate projects in our country, it will be inevitable that more investors and users will turn to this system in the future.
Conclusion
Co-living offers not only economic advantages, but also social, cultural and environmental benefits and innovative solutions to the challenges of modern life. If you want to save money, enjoy flexible living spaces and a rich social environment, co-living is for you. Moreover, successful examples in the UK and high returns on investment are strong indicators that this model of living will become even more widespread in the future. When pioneering projects are implemented in Turkey, significant opportunities will emerge for both individuals and investors.
