Founded in 2015 and growing rapidly ever since, Common.com is a real estate startup with a simple yet brilliant approach to affordable housing. With a focus on the great cities of the United States including New York, Chicago, and San Francisco, where housing costs can easily consume half a person’s monthly income, Common specializes in coliving space, a housing model similar to boarding houses and college dorms. Residents have a room all to themselves but share most of their living space with others. Bathrooms, kitchens, laundry, and lounge areas are shared.
Shared housing, while seemingly novel to most modern-day Americans, is a popular living arrangement in other parts of the world. This is particularly true in Europe, where every inch of available living space was claimed and developed centuries ago.
In fact, in the first century or so of American urban expansion – from about 1850 to 1950 – coliving was just as common as it is in other countries. It was only in the years after World War Two, when American cities saw their populations plummet as people flocked to the suburbs, that the demand for shared housing in big cities began to drop.
Yet to think Common is simply importing the existing coliving system into the modern American urban landscape would be a mistake. The company owes much of its success to their redesigned approach to shared housing. Rather than implement a hotel-style layout where everyone’s room hangs off a long hallway, Common prefers to design their spaces with community interaction as a central theme. While residents in Common housing have privacy in their own space, it’s almost impossible to live there and not interact with your neighbors on a daily basis.
Common welcomes this setup. As expressed by founder and CEO Brad Hargreaves in the aforementioned article published by the Architect’s Newspaper: “There are plenty of buildings where you can have your own private space and be anonymous in the elevator, but this is not that place.”
All this adds up to booming business for this real estate startup. By January of 2017, Common already had nine separate spaces across three cities. A year and a half later and the company is up to 12 locations in four cities. Furthermore, Common reports being utterly inundated with applications far exceeding available units. The company is in a constant race to keep up with demand. Despite the development of three new locations in recent months, Common continues to require more space to meet this demand.
The success of Common and other coliving companies reflects an institutional change in the way the big city real estate markets in America will exist in the 21st century. As more and more people flock to cities like New York and San Francisco, affordable housing will need to be accessible to more than those earning six-figures. In particular, the rate of childless professionals is growing while the prospect of marriage is losing its luster in the eyes of those under the age of 35.
The result is a growing market of people who are just looking for an affordable place to live, preferably one which is clean, comfortable, and safe. Common has made it their mission to be the name people think of when they think of quality coliving space in a world-class city.
