Silvia, a co-founder and Chief Operating Officer at B-Hive Living, talks about how running a coliving business drives social change.

Hey Silvia, nice to have you with us today. Tell us a bit more about yourself. What drives you?

Hello, I am Silvia. I am one of the co-founders and currently in charge of operations at B-Hive Living. My passion and life purpose is to build a more connected and inclusive society through running a coliving business. Before founding B-Hive Living I spent 15 years working in senior marketing management roles for blue-chip FMCG brands such as Wall’s, Lipton and Dove. My ambition was to drive change at scale by building purpose and social impact into these brands’ DNA through strategy and innovation. After all, we were reaching and shaping the lifestyle of millions of consumers around the world everyday.

How did you get into running a coliving business?

B-Hive Living was born out of our aspirations to radically shift the experience of shared living renters around the world. Both myself and Williams – my husband and co-founder at B-Hive Living – had lived in shared accommodations in many different cities and countries from Italy to Brazil and the UK. We often felt that the wellbeing and convenience of renters were an after-thought for developers and landlords. The rising rental prices in most major cities were at odds with the general quality of rental properties and home technology. The millennials also desire a more social and flexible way of living.

Therefore, in 2016, we set the vision for the Hives – exceptional coliving spaces where purpose, design and technology come together to serve the wellbeing and convenience of a new generation who dares to live a more connected, purposeful, and fulfilling life. After two years of market research, we bought, refurbished and launched our first Hive prototype in Bicester, Oxfordshire (UK) at the end of 2017. Since then, we’ve acquired, developed and launched four new projects. They have been crucial for helping us learn and develop every aspects of our business model from land acquisition through development to interior design and service delivery. After such a steep learning curve, we have our eyes and hearts set on bringing our vision to a new scale in terms of size and locations in the UK and Europe.

What makes you passionate about coliving, and why are you actively promoting the coliving scene?

I truly believe that coliving is a great answer and antidote for two big societal challenges we currently face: affordable housing and loneliness.

At B-Hive Living, we believe that living well starts at home. After all, over 80% of our health outcomes are determined by the standard of our home, relationships within it and the surrounding environment. Coliving homes should not simply be a place to rest your head. It should be an experience that elevates human condition through community and wellbeing-led design and build. This was our mindset in the development of all our Hives. We endeavour to create an empowering space for residents to lead a healthier, more connected and fulfilling lifestyle through an integrated approach to coliving involving wellbeing design, built and services.

What are your vision and thoughts on the future of coliving for the year to come?

I believe this pandemic will continue to trigger a host of new requirements from operators and tenants. With that, a greater emphasis on safety, wellbeing and convenience will become the norm. Remote working is becoming increasingly widespread. I therefore expect new coliving spaces to provide larger private spaces with communal areas designed to cater for both life and work, and diverse levels of intimacy. Further investment and training in community facilitation will be needed as mental health support and prevention becomes an essential skill in running a coliving business.

As the long spell of remote working continues, the perceived need for presence and proximity in the workplace is dissolving. A new wave of remote workers, freelancers and digital nomads that shifts the demand and supply for coliving spaces might rise towards the outskirts of major cities and in more residential neighbourhoods. Nevertheless, I expect urban demand for coliving to remain high and growing.

With stress, anxiety and burnout on the rise, the homebuilding community will have a massive opportunity to shift approach to sustainability. The industry will need to go beyond focusing on the 1% equation associated with the costs of energy, water and waste. It will truly embrace the transformative potential of healthy buildings supporting the health and wellbeing of current and future generations.

Find out more about how coliving contributes to social wellbeing from the full interview published in Medium

Highlights from Portugese coliving meetup

Given the profound and dynamic nature of this global pandemic, Co-liv and B-Hive Living have been convening a series of roundtables to explore the impact of Covid-19 on the coliving sector. The aim is to help coliving and other build-to-rent strategies to pivot towards a sustainable future. We concluded with the top 10 coliving predictions for 2021.

In January we hosted the first event of 2021 “Portugal Coliving Outlook 2021: Accelerating out of the crisis”.

Some great speakers including Matt Lesniak (Co-founder and Head of Impact & Innovation, Coliving Insights Magazine & Conscious Coliving), Dave Williams (Chairman, CEO and Co-Founder, NOMADX), Nuno Nunes (Head of Capital Markets, CBRE Portugal) shared their insights on their coliving predictions for 2021.

Our top 10 coliving predictions for 2021

1.

This pandemic will continue to trigger a host of new requirements from operators and tenants. With that, a greater emphasis on safety, wellbeing and convenience will become the norm in 2021. As remote working becomes widespread, new coliving spaces will be seeking to provide larger private spaces. They will include communal areas designed to cater for both live and work needs in equal measure and diverse levels of intimacy. Further investment and training in community facilitation will be needed. Mental health support and prevention will become an essential skill in the coliving professional toolkit.

2.

The long spell of remote working continues. The perceived need for presence and proximity in the workplace is dissolving. It will create a new wave of remote workers, freelancers and digital nomads towards the Portuguese shores once travel restrictions ease. This will shift the demand and supply for coliving spaces towards the outskirts of Lisbon and Porto to more residential neighbourhoods. It’s because this new audience look for a more authentic Portuguese experience away from the traditional touristic areas. The search for new retreat/work destinations is on the rise with locations such as Ericeira and Madeira Island likely to become a hot spot for foreign workers.

3.

Despite the mammoth influx of Airb&b properties in the traditional rental market in Porto and Lisbon in 2020, rental values are expected to remain stable in 2021. They may even grow for premium coliving properties offering the right combination of comfort, services and amenities for the professional market. Highly desirable amenities include flexible contracts, no deposits, plenty of natural light, comfy chairs, large desks and of course high-speed internet.

4.

Institutional investment into coliving is set to grow in Portugal after the show of strength and resilience demonstrated by coliving assets during the pandemic. According to CBRE, this growth will be marked by over 3000 purpose-built units which are expected to enter the market in the next eighteen months. The strong pipeline is the result of a growing trend of collaboration between Portuguese investors and developers and international operators.

5.

The renewed confidence in coliving together with the recent demise of Quarters coliving in the US will lead to management contracts replacing lease contracts as the prevalent contractual form for large-scale coliving. One of lessons learned in this pandemic is that having lease contract is no guarantee of income for investors in tough market conditions. Those lead to costly and time-consuming contractual renegotiations and hence the recognition of the management model as a better way to align the interests of both investors and operators in Portugal and elsewhere.

6.

The old stock of large apartments in Lisbon will represent a substantial opportunity for coliving companies in 2021. The inflated prices of the capital have so far been a major huddle for the proliferation of purpose-built coliving spaces. Retrofit of those properties could become a way forward to unlock the power of coliving in Lisbon.

7.

As banks and other more traditional forms of financing tighten, crowdfunding is set to become more prevalent in the financing of coliving projects which enjoy a growing popularity among consumers in general. This is already happening with success in the UK and Brazil. 2021 could be the year that crowdfunding for real estate investment takes off in Portugal.

8.

The real estate industry is the next in line to get its piece of the subscription economy cake. Economical and societal changes created an ideal condition for the new concept of subscription living to thrive. Living subscription models offer flexibility and convenience to consumers and a unique business opportunity to investors and shared living operators. They present themselves as a win-win model to please all stakeholders. Subscription living can establish a new paradigm for how people live, work, travel and connect. Businesses and investors in real estate need to prepare to take advantage of the subscription economy. Otherwise they will have to witness the competition creatively fulfill the market’s needs.

9.

With stress, anxiety and burnout on the rise, the homebuilding community will have the massive opportunity to shift approach to sustainability. The industry will need to go beyond the focus on the 1% equation associated with the costs of energy, water and waste. It will truly embrace the transformative potential of healthy buildings able to support the health and wellbeing of current and future generations. Environment certification and building design certification will become a must in the near future.

10.

Integrating different types of impact KPI will be paramount. These should measure not only the strength of the community and neighbourhood engagement, but also residents and staff wellbeing, building sustainability, energy/waste management, economic impact and more.

Listen to the event podcast on the COLIV Spotify channel at the following link.

It has been an absolute pleasure for B-Hive Living CEO Williams Johnson Mota to share our vision, story and ethos in the latest interview with Caterina Maiolini at Coliv.

B-Hive Living was created out of the ambition to proactively build homes, communities and shape experiences supporting the holistic health and wellbeing of a growing generation of renters. We believe in building nourishing shared living environments that foster connection and elevate lifestyle and wellness of residents. We drive social change by exploring and promoting the concept of living well and placing it at the heart of our coliving design.

Listen to this episode on Spotify to hear more from our CEO Williams Johnson Mota. He shares our passion for coliving, how B-Hive Living started, what is our vision and why we believe coliving is not only the present but the future of living.

This comes on a timely week – we have been recognised as one of the best coliving operators in the UK. Dreams come true to those that follow their purpose.

Thank you to Coliv for hosting the podcast, and  Young Global Living | Coliving | Work | Experience for your support on this.

We are delighted to be featured in the top 7 of the UK’s best coliving spaces by Stay The Night this week.

The coliving concept has been growing rapidly in popularity over the past few years. In a world that is becoming increasingly lonely for many – particularly among younger generations – the coliving concept creates a sense of belonging that so many are seeking. Operating as a place for people to live, work and play, members can become part of a connected and engaged community while enjoying the convenience of flexible living (without the frustrations of a typical flatshare). You can read more about the benefits of coliving here.

But who is leading the way in the UK? Stay The Night has listed 7 of the UK’s best coliving spaces, with B-Hive Living among them. The unique character of B-Hive Living is the mission to drive social change by constantly exploring and promoting the concept of living well and placing it at the heart of our coliving design. We build nourishing shared living environments that foster connection and elevate the lifestyle and wellness of our residents.

Don’t miss out on reading the full article here.