The pandemic, apart from the health and economic crisis that it is causing, has brought new actors into play, such as teleworking, which in turn are accelerating new ways of working and living. These are the ‘coworkings’, ‘colivings’ and ‘workations’, which not only open the door to new market niches in the real estate sector, but also generate new professional profiles to energize these spaces and market them, which is a great business opportunity for the real estate sector.
“These models already existed in our society, especially the first two, but the pandemic that is devastating us is going to be a strong catalyst for the process, speeding up their development and turning them into very interesting and desired alternatives, mainly among the youngest groups. ”, Explained Lola Alcover, secretary of the General Council of COAPIs of Spain. In fact, ‘coworkings’, shared work spaces focused on cooperating and generating synergies between users, thus promoting social and labor life, are on the rise and now exceed 800,000 square meters in Spain.
The ‘coliving’, a type of ‘co-experience’ or corporate residence, is, for its part, the evolution of coworking, one more step towards the coexistence of users with the aim of sharing much more than professional projects. In this sense, these communities can have office areas, libraries, gymnasiums “and everything that the promoter wants to incorporate and is viable,” explains Alcover. “The recent regulation in Catalonia of mini-flats with shared community spaces lays a legal basis for this type of promotion, which we will undoubtedly see grow in the coming years due to its great demand,” he points out.
The rise of these new models of living and working is giving rise to new professional profiles associated with the dynamization of these spaces: the ‘community builder’ in the case of ‘coworking’ and the community manager in ‘coliving’ spaces. “This offers the professional the opportunity to enter into the commercialization of this type of products, being suitably trained to know and perfectly control the peculiarities and idiosyncrasies of this new market in which to operate and which opens up so many market possibilities to the real estate sector. ”, Explains Alcover.
Living and working in vacation areas
In this context of reconciling social, work and leisure life in the same space, ‘workation’ comes into play. This concept, which combines the Anglo-Saxon terms ‘work’ and ‘vacation’, is more innovative, but the pandemic has accelerated its staging and its approach based on improving the quality of life in areas associated with holidays suggests a relevant development of this business model.
In this sense, large companies and hotel chains are betting on this format, but also some countries and territories with high tourist attraction such as Barbados, Bermuda or the Algarve. “The entry into play of telework allows this mobility, and also allows the hotel offer to be readapted to new targets and ways of understanding the way of life”, analyzes Lola Alcover.
Fuente : Fotocasa
