The digital nomad lifestyle brings lots of excitement and adventure, but also has its difficulties, especially when it comes to finding a place to cultivate productivity and creativity. This is when the idea of collective living begins to take shape.
There are many types of accommodation to choose from as a digital nomad, and they all with their pros and cons. However, there is one relatively new kid on the market that aims to cater to location-independent workers, young professionals, and digital nomads – coliving.
What Is Coliving And What Are The Benefits?
Coliving is a concept of communal housing where like-minded people live under the same roof and pool their resources to have accommodation and a working space with a social component. It generally consists of one room per person and various communal spaces that everyone is free to use, including kitchen bathroom, balcony, and more. This concept is akin to university dormitory living and shared housing (roommates) when just starting out living independently from ones’ parents.
Coliving spaces offer digital nomads accommodation while also providing them with a place to get their work done without having to rent a different co-working space. Moreover, it comes with the added benefit of being able to connect with like-minded people, as this lifestyle focuses more on human connection than just sharing the cost of living with some random folks.
Here’s our List of Top 5 Coworking Spaces Perfect for Digital Nomads and Remote Workers
- Top 5 coworking spaces in Chiang Mai
- Top 5 coworking spaces in Berlin Germany
- Top 5 coworking spaces in Bali
- Top 5 coworking spaces in Sydney Australia
- Top 5 coworking spaces in London
- Top 5 coworking spaces in Singapore
- Top 5 coworking spaces in Tokyo Japan
- Top 5 coworking spaces in New York
- Top 5 coworking spaces in Barcelona Spain
- Top 5 coworking spaces in Mexico City
You don’t have to be a digital nomad to experience the coliving lifestyle, as this is also a suitable choice for remote workers who don’t travel as much. Instead of renting a flat individually or with traditional flatmates, going for a coliving space is the easiest way to make sure that you will be living with like-minded individuals while also having the space motivation to grow your business or further your career.
The main advantage of co-living is networking because this is an excellent chance to meet other people in the same industry as yours and make powerful contacts. Because there are common areas in every colliding space, you are forced to interact and forge relationships that you might otherwise not get the chance to.
See here: What is the difference between coworking and coliving ?
How Does Coliving Work Exactly ?
If we were to sum up the coliving experience in a couple of words, it would be the perfect blend of independence and community. Whether you are renting a coliving space on your own or via one of the many websites and companies that connect digital nomads with dedicated co-living spaces worldwide, you have a private space to retreat into when you need to work just want some quiet time. Then, when you’re ready to socialize, you have a ready-made group to share meals, hang out, or go out and explore the city or take part in a range of events.
The vast majority of coliving spaces are specifically made or altered for online workers, with working conditions being a priority, which means that you’ll always have the best conditions to be productive and efficient. Stable Wi-Fi is a given in coliving spaces, as is at least one private space for each tenant. Finally, many people who experienced the coliving lifestyle mentioned that it is a great opportunity to form positive habits because you live with other people from whom you have a lot to learn.
Many coliving spaces offer multiple services to make your life easier as well, including cleaning the space, collecting the rent payments from all flatmates, and arranging all the details related to finding the perfect space and signing the lease agreement.
Besides all the advantages already mentioned, coliving is also a good way to reduce your living costs as a digital nomad. It obviously cost less to rent a room in a coliving space than a hotel room or an entire Airbnb for yourself. Moreover, many of the facilities dedicated to coliving come with lots of amenities covered in the monthly rent, including, for example, a gym, spa, swimming pool, or community-hosted events.
Where Can You Find Coliving Spaces as a Digital Nomad or Remote Worker ?
The good news is that there are many coliving spaces scattered all around the world, so it shouldn’t be difficult to find a suitable one in your chosen location. Moreover, because the coliving economy is expanding to suit an ever-growing population of digital nomads, it’s expected that the number of coliving spaces will grow even more. You can choose from short-term and long-term coliving spaces on virtually all continents.
Multiple companies such as Sun and Co. offer a range of carefully selected coliving spaces in countries such as Spain, Italy, Thailand, Germany, the U.S., and much more. If you don’t want to go through an agency that offers a large selection of coliving spaces worldwide, you can easily find independent residences around the world that are suitable for this type of lifestyle, having been transformed to cater to the needs of digital nomads.
New trend in Coliving: Utopias Linking Virtual and Physical Communities
There is a new trend in coliving. Now entrepreneurs are taking coliving to a new level. How? By linking relationships established through engagement in online social networks to real life, physically existing communities. Many call this Utopia. Financial Times covered Jon Hillis who established an offline community called Neighborhood Zero near Austin, Texas (FT, House & Home, August 5-6, 2023). Hillis’ goal? “To bring out great people from the internet to get together and co-create,” he said.
Similarly, Andrew and Priya Rose obtained crowdsourced ideas for a location where they could encourage like-minded friends to swarm a location and purchase condominiums in mass. They settled on a spot in Brooklyn, New York calling their project, Fractal. Rose says, “its literally just a bunch of friends trying to live near each other and work on creative projects together.”
Cooperative housing presents opportunities for investors
Cooperative housing presents a plethora of opportunities for investors to make money. As we have seen from this article, the demand for housing is ever increasing. This, coupled with the demand from remote workers, digital nomads working from anywhere to connect with others. When working alone from home or from anywhere, the threat of isolation is real. Loneliness can also detrimentally impact one’s mental health. If you’re making a lot of money doing what you love, what is the benefit if you grow slowly detached from reality as a result?
That’s where shrewd investors can come in. The New York Post interviewed Netflix Real Estate Influencer who mentioned the time is right to get into commercial real estate. Jade Shenker argued, “
“I think commercial real estate is the better investment overall. Right now, it’s like a giant Black Friday sale. It’s a buyer’s market. Things are really trading at almost 40%, 50% market value.”
If this article doesn’t convince you to take a wade in the water. What will?
Coliving and Cohousing is it the same ?
Coliving and cohousing can be synonymous with one another. The major difference between coliving and cohousing says Wikipedia is cohousing is a cooperative community, where the inhabitants of the community live in private homes (that they own). These homes are situated in a tight knit community and may abide by the same design rules and share the same community space (think Home Owners Association, HOA). As we have reviewed the characteristics of coliving in this article. Residents living in coliving conditions generally share the same abode, house, apartment or occupy the same building that may or may not be co-owned.
You can choose from multiple websites that list coliving spaces from all around the world, with Search Remotely being one of the largest and most popular. On our website, you can simply put in the name of the city where you want to live and find your perfect home with just a couple of clicks. Coliving is more than just splitting the bills and having someone to talk to at the end of the day. Because all members of the group are digital numbers or remote workers, you’re very likely to improve your skills and make connections that really matter for your business or career. Unlike staying in hotels or Airbnbs, coliving spaces don’t have that impersonal feeling, and they feel very close to home. Moreover, because you can choose to live in them for extended periods of time that range from months to years, you can put down roots in a particular city and make connections that will last for a lifetime.
The Benefits of Cooperative Living
There a a multitude of benefits to coliving and cohousing, ie cooperative living. Several cities and towns are embarking upon aggressive initiatives to initiate cohousing programs. Why? There are several reasons. The main reason is attacking the lack of affordability.
The Macdonald Laurier Institute in Canada suggests that the cohousing could be THE solution to make home ownership accessible to more people? How? Potential owners of cohousing units participate in the development of the community from day one. This gives them a voice in affordable design. Further, cohousing units make home units less expensive by reducing land square footage. A reduction in private space ownership is traded with increased space for residents to appreciate shared community space.
The National Library of Medicine published research to demonstrate the positive association of cohousing and mental and physical health. Some advantages of cohousing according to studies are:
- older inhabitants (senior citizens) are less isolated when living with others, than when living alone
- residents of all ages enjoy the benefits of receiving mutual support and a sense of community
Three additional benefits of cohousing says the Foundation of Intentional Living are:
- reduction of resource consumption through the sharing of community resources
- cost savings for energy, maintenance, ground keeping and food can average about $200 per household with some occupants achieving up to $2000 per month
- opportunities for reselling energy (electricity for instance) to neighboring towns with the communal installation of solar panels
