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Projects via FAcebook

How co-living works in other countries and how they compare to Ireland's house-shares

The Housing Minister said co-living developments offer less space for less rent ..

THIS WEEK THE Housing Minister came under fire after comments he made in relation to the development of co-living complexes in Ireland.

On Monday, Eoghan Murphy said these blocks, which offer residents a small bedroom and shower room of their own, and a large kitchen shared with the entire floor, offer an “exciting” choice to young workers.

He also said some younger people would welcome the idea of paying less rent for less space.

Plans have been submitted for the first of these co-living buildings that were made permissible under new design standard guidelines introduced in March last year.

The Bartra Capital Property Group has applied to An Bord Pleanála for permission to build a five-floor building on Eblana Avenue in Dun Laoghaire. The plan was initially rejected by the council.

If approved the plans would see the demolition of all existing buildings on the 2,629 square metre site and the construction of a 6,501 square metre building with 208 “single occupancy bedspaces”.

Bartra Capital Property’s CEO Mike Flannery told TheJournal.ie this week that the rooms in the development will be rented out for around €1,300 a month. This figure will cover cleaning fees, Wifi and access to facilities like a gym and a cinema.

TheJournal.ie asked the Department of Housing on Tuesday to clarify the minister’s comments that these developments would offer “less space for less rent“.

A spokesperson said:

“Co-living developments will offer a new option at a lower rent than more conventional one-bedroom apartments in similar locations.

“These niche projects are about expanding choice for a particular demographic in the rental market – they are not envisaged as an alternative or replacement to the more conventional apartment developments.”

“The concept of shared, or co-living, is working successfully in many cities around the world including London, Berlin and New York.”

Let’s look at some of these models in other countries. 

In London, The Collective’s Old Oak development has 550 beds and rent is £1,083 with the majority of bedrooms at 10 square metres in size. This video shows some of the shared spaces available at the Old Oak building – and a very brief peek inside one of the bedrooms. 

The Collective / YouTube

Projects in Berlin has four buildings in different neighbourhoods and prices start at €700 per month.

Projects Projects

These developments are still split into two or three person apartments with shared kitchens and bathrooms, like a regular flat-share. There are also studios for people who want more privacy and these apartments come with their own kitchen and bathroom.

Also in Berlin, Quarters offers 90 rooms in 24 shared apartments that have up to five bedrooms. So this model differs from the proposed plans for Dublin. 

QUARTERS Co-Living / YouTube

A Landing Pad (ALP) in Barcelona has private rooms for €800 a month and mini-apartments for €1,400 a month. However this space is more for tech workers who are looking for a long-stay in the city than a more permanent residence.

In Stockholm’s K9, rent ranges from $650 for a bunk in a six bed room to about $1,600 for the most expensive room. The New York Times reported this was steep compared with the official controlled rent of the city and roughly on par with the more expensive sublets.

‘Traditional house shares’

Although the department’s clarification of the minister’s comments to TheJournal.ie made a comparison between these rooms and a one-bed apartment (in which a person would have their own living space and kitchen), when the minister himself later addressed his comments, he compared them to house shares.

He said “16 m/sq [the size of rooms in the Bartra plans] is larger than rooms in traditional house shares”.

Real estate services firm CBRE said there there is no data available on the average size of house shares and listings tend not to include square footage of rooms when they are advertised.

However a search of house and apartment shares on Daft.ie across Dublin presented more than 250 large bedrooms with rent of more than €900 a month [in the price range of co-living rooms].

This ensuite double bedroom in Dún Laoghaire is available in an apartment shared with one other tenant for €1,150 a month.

Daft.ie Daft.ie

There is also this room for €1,150 a month in a two-bed in Portobello, this room in a three-bed in Stillorgan for €1,000 a month, this room in a two-bed in Blackrock for €1,200, this room in a two-bed in Dún Laoghaire for €1,100 and this room in a Ballsbridge apartment shared with two other tenants for €900 a month.

All of these bedrooms are ensuite.

‘An average salary’

Bartra’s Mike Flannery said the development proposed for Dún Laoghaire was not designed to be a response to growing homeless figures and insisted misinformation about the project was being circulated by politicians.

“There is also a very big accommodation issue for young, single people who are working on an average kind of salary or thereabouts and who are not couples.”

Flannery said Bartra had carried out market research which concluded that this development would be aimed towards newly qualified nurses or teachers, and other qualified workers in Dublin between the ages of 20 and 34 years old.

A registered staff nurse has a starting salary of €29, 346.

“I’m not for one second saying that this is to everybody’s taste… neither is a three-bed semi to everybody’s taste, and this is what’s forgotten in the discourse,” he said.

“I know in certain areas nurses are travelling long distances after long shifts for affordable accommodation.

“We can provide them with accommodation close to their place of work and for an all-in single bill per month, this will form part of what’s comfortable for them, as a proportion of their income – 40% or thereabouts is what people are comfortable at.”

Bartra has three other co-living developments in the works at locations across Dublin with a vision to move into other cities around Ireland including Cork and Galway.

“For those who want a house share for cheaper rent and are saving for different reasons, or are just more thrifty, or just don’t want to interact with as many people as that, they’re never going to come to our building. That is fine,” Flannery said.

“They need to be taken care of by a different part of the accommodation market. “

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    Mute Christine Hanway
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    May 26th 2019, 9:09 PM

    Im not against these builds, they can help as a small percentage to the problem, provided they are well maintained and have decent amenities. What I do have a problem with is the prices they are throwing out here. No co-living space should be over €600/€700 a mth max. People are house sharing now paying €1000/1200 per month but it leaves no room for saving on the average income required to be going down the road of a mortgage. Rent payments should 100% be used as your financial track record but in the same breathe house prices need come down people are paying rents and trying to save at the same time. Its like a catch 22. So although I do welcome the idea to an extent where does it solve the working people wanting to own their own home crisis…

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    Mute Renton Burke
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    May 26th 2019, 11:16 PM

    @Christine Hanway: it’s going to be market led, and the price will be enough to ensure that they are not a low cost replacement for other accommodation options. An important part in the success of these schemes are the collaboration and shared experiences of the members who are renting, and until a cultural change towards shared living happens (i.e. residents don’t treat it as cr@p) then they will be priced out of renter’s looking for a room market.

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    Mute Peter Hughes
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    May 26th 2019, 9:28 PM

    if you rent a room in a house you also get additional space like living room, storage, gardens and you share with only a few people. anyone that pays 1300 a month for a bedroom with a small ensuite bathroom and shares a kitchen with 40 odd people needs their head examined.

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    Mute Renton Burke
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    May 26th 2019, 11:16 PM

    @Peter Hughes: these are people who don’t need to own things, and rent everything – including their kitchen and bathroom.

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    Mute Fifty Shades of Sé
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    May 27th 2019, 11:42 AM

    @Peter Hughes: The government are working tirelessly to ensure that people have no other option.

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    Mute Boyne Sharky
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    May 26th 2019, 9:30 PM

    If these are built I forsee the prices succumbing rapidly to market demands, just as every other property has done. Within a few years those newly qualified nurses or teachers hoping to get even a room in one of these buildings at €1,300 per month will be faced with competition from employees from tech, banking etc. willing to pay two or three times the going rate. Who do you think is going to get the room?
    Excuses will be made, market demands and all that, but at the end of the day it’ll just be another disgusting excuse for developers to may vast profits at our expense.

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    Mute Toomasu Sumitsu
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    May 26th 2019, 9:37 PM

    Do the comparative rooms linked in the article include a gym and bills? Regardless they look much nicer. For introverted people shared living could be a nightmare.

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    Mute Vin
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    May 27th 2019, 10:59 AM

    “Exciting”. You shouldn’t have to live in student accommodation when you work full time

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    Mute James Wallace
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    May 26th 2019, 10:59 PM

    Co living could work as part of a properly functioning housing/rental market it could be an option for students or transient workers. But we don’t have a functioning housing market.

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    Mute Grainne Tallon
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    May 27th 2019, 9:43 AM

    They say this is aimed at young professionals. In reality, with Dublin prices, whole families are going to end up in these tenements…

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    Mute Dave Doyle
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    May 27th 2019, 5:32 AM

    The cell-block accommodation proposed as a solution to the housing shortage will look nothing like what’s in the photos used to push this agenda.
    FG lie, it’s one of the things they do best. Murphy lies every time he opens his mouth on the housing issue.

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    Mute Darren Sheridan
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    May 27th 2019, 11:16 AM

    Who can afford this €1300 per month bedsit? I know I can’t and I’m really freaking trying!

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    Mute Eoin Finnega
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    May 26th 2019, 9:11 PM

    This is basically the same thing but has a small kitchen sink and microwave in the bedroom. It’s in Lucan. Been around about 10 years now and are nearly always snapped up by people, mostly couples.
    https://www.rent.ie/houses-to-let/Trasnagh-Newcastle-Road-Lucan-Co-Dublin/1912709/

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    Mute EillieEs
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    May 27th 2019, 3:19 AM

    @Eoin Finnega: it’s not the same though – the room you showed has a kitchenette, it’s not sharing a kitchen with 42 other people.

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    Mute Eoin Finnega
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    May 27th 2019, 4:59 AM

    @EillieEs: That kitchenette has a sink, kettle, fridge and microwave – that’s it.
    Saying “sharing a kitchen” is misleading as it conjures up the idea of everyone in a standard kitchen. It isn’t. There will likely be an oven and hob for every 6 people. That’s 7 ovens and hobs, the place I linked to has 3 for 16 units (as I recall, having lived there for a year). It was overcrowded and people leaving slow cooking pots for 8 hours should be outlawed but aside from that it was more or less the same as when I shared a 3 bed house with 2 other guys.
    The pricing is crazy for what it is, that’s for sure but these are not unlivable hovels as they are being made out to be. For a single person these would not be too bad aside from the price being that excessive.

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    Mute Dave Doyle
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    May 27th 2019, 12:20 PM
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    Mute Mirabelle Stonegate
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    May 27th 2019, 4:55 PM

    @Eoin Finnega: I lived in this type of place in Germany at one point. One kitchen between 40, with one microwave, two ovens and two 4 ring stove tops. There were two kettles in the entire building of 100 people. One of those was owned by me, kept in my room, so that I could live on pot noodle, rather than going hungry due to inability to access the kitchen.

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    Mute Derek Power
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    May 27th 2019, 9:46 AM

    How does it work for things like the TV Tax? Is it one per dwelling (cell) or one for the entire group of people?

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    Mute Wade Wilson
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    May 27th 2019, 2:30 PM

    FG/FF: We are going to build a private prison with rooms smaller than standard prison cells then get the people to fight over living in it AND make them pay for it!

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    Mute Margaret Kane
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    Jan 28th 2021, 9:49 PM

    Its disgraceful to expect people to live like that no privacy

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