What is coliving and who is it for?
Coliving is a flexible type of communal housing with services, and represents an upcoming market in France. Halfway between conventional flat-sharing and a hotel, coliving might well hail a new form of habitat. Offering flexibility in terms of rental period, a private living space together with communal areas, and associated services, coliving meets new expectations while embracing the notion of community that is important not only to new generations, but also to many single-dwellers.
According to BNP Paribas Real Estate, the coliving market in France is stimulated by five factors. First of all, the challenge to find accommodation in cities, combined with the housing needs of people in a transitory phase of their lives, which include mainly students aged 18 to 25, young professionals aged 20 to 35, and young seniors in the age bracket 55 to 65. Another booster for coliving is the increasing number of people who live alone and who are looking for a community set-up. This goes hand in hand with the increasing numbers of students and self-employed people. Finally, there is the increasingly high concentration of students living in metropolitan university centres.
ColivMe, a marketplace that democratises access to coliving
The platform brings all the offers from the different operators together in one place.
- For coliving operators, being listed on ColivMe guarantees visibility for their offer and a classification of the profiles of people who want to apply for it, based on the information that applicants fill in on the website and agree to share with them. This streamlines the process both for potential clients and operators.
- For colivers: ColivMe.com gives people access to more than 1,500 beds in coliving homes throughout France, from Bayonne to Montpelier, Paris, Massy-Palaiseau or Nancy. The process is simple: you choose a town and look at the coliving offers available there. Applicants fill in their profile directly on ColivMe, which puts them in touch with the operator of the co-living offer that they’ve selected.
In June 2019, while still in its incubation phase, ColivMe received the Public Prize at the 2019 Futur.e.s Awards for innovative projects with a strong impact on society.
An intrapreneurial initiative:
ColivMe was born from an intrapreneurial initiative. In 2018, two BNP Paribas Real Estate employees, Lionel Bodénès and Alexandre Marcadier, got the brainwave to set up a coliving marketplace. Alexandre, Development Manager at Residential Property Marketing, and Lionel, Fund Manager at Investment Management, were taken up in the BNP Paribas Group incubator IFS Alpha at BivwAk!, where they developed their project for 6 months in start-up mode.
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