Coliving: What Millenials Want

We figured that co-living is majorly about two things: the people and the spaces. And in order to get it right, it was important for us to know what people wanted. We needed to understand individual preferences to be able to make key decisions and take into consideration what people would be willing to share and what they wouldn’t. So we decided to ask millennials how they would like to co-live. Here’s a little of what we found out.

What makes coliving appealing

In this part of the world where affordable housing is increasingly hard to find, people are constantly looking for ways to cut costs. Renting an apartment is super expensive, so it isn’t all that surprising that one very attractive reason to co-live is to save money.

People want to be able to live comfortably and not have to blow off half of their paycheck doing so. They want to avoid the extra fees and the hassles of renting by splitting costs with others for a better lifestyle.

Although most people are into the idea of coliving for its benefits on their pockets, having more ways to socialize is the next best thing that makes coliving appealing to them.

Small circles for the win

We asked how many people would be ideal for a co-living space and apparently, a lot of people want to live in a minimum of fours and a maximum of ten. It definitely creates a simpler situation for people and makes it easier to really bond and connect with others.

Diversity is welcome

You might expect that owing to the fact that we would like to avoid conflict as much as we can, most people would rather live with others who are quite similar to them. However, 65.9% of our respondents say that they would prefer to live with people from different backgrounds.

We asked respondents to pick their preferences in regards to the type of individuals they would like to live with, single men, women and couples top the list. Teenagers and children? Not so much.

A lot of people are willing to share

We decided to give a number of options and allow respondents to pick as many things as they would like to share. The good news is that everyone is willing to share something. People are really comfortable with sharing the internet, common areas like the living room, dining room and workspaces. They are equally cool with sharing cleaning duties.

However, quite a number of them said they would rather have their private rooms and bathrooms. They were not so keen on the idea of sharing groceries either.

Lack of privacy is a primary concern

Most respondents are worried that the biggest con of coliving would be the lack of privacy. People are really particular about maintaining their private spaces even while sharing a number of things with others.

We created this survey to get better insights on how to build the ideal quality co-living space in a city like Lagos. Most of our respondents are from ages 18 to 35 earning an average of N150,000 a month. We understand just how expensive city lifestyle can be which is why we are building Cluster. If you would like to tell us how you envision coliving you can fill out the form here. We’ll be glad to hear from you.