This edition:
SIMA Madrid 2026 hosts the first-ever dedicated Flex Living Space
Scion + Ares close the largest US student housing portfolio sale of the year
Habyt sells its France, Portugal and Spain coliving books to local operators
Three Elephant & Castle PBSA debt deal closes in 14 days
The Assembly Place launches Singapore’s first AI-powered coliving
Hilton’s Apartment Collection becomes bookable
Outpost + June Homes drop the first post-merger tenant survey
and everything else coliving
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In Case You Missed It
40% of Investors Are Raising Coliving Allocation + Vonder Dubai + Wee Hur Sydney (May 21) Last edition we covered the Investec Future Living 4 report, the death of Connecticut’s “Golden Girls” bill in the House, Vonder’s Dubai launch, Wee Hur’s $50M Wollstonecraft bet, and Stanza Living’s $32M Series E. Read →
Habyt Sells APAC to Mitsubishi, Patron Tests €400M Exit, and Argis Opens Madrid Metro HQ (May 19) The Habyt-Mitsubishi APAC deal, Patron Capital’s Vandor sale process, and Madrid’s office-to-coliving thesis going live. Read →
Inside Spain’s Flex Living Boom (Podcast S2 Ep2) Why €17B is chasing Madrid. Listen →
SIMA Madrid 2026: Flex Living Finally Gets Its Own Room
IFEMA Madrid happened last week. Twenty thousand visitors, five thousand companies, and two hundred speakers. And for the first time in SIMA’s history, flex living got its own dedicated exhibition area, built in partnership with Coword, Spain’s flex living association led by Araceli Martín-Navarro. (SIMA Expo · EuroBuild CEE)
That sentence sounds small. It is not.
For a decade we have been telling investors, planners, journalists, and operators the same thing: flex living and coliving deserve to be a stand-alone asset class. Not a sub-segment of BTR. Not “alternative residential.” Not “PBSA with adults.” Their own room. Their own panel track. Their own buyer pool.
SIMA just gave them the room.
A few things that struck me from the floor:
The Spanish capital story is real and accelerating. Colliers’ new Q1 2026 Spain Living Snapshot, released around SIMA week shows international capital now accounts for 54% of Spanish living activity vs. 46% domestic. Funds are 56% of buyers. Developers 33%. Flex living is consolidating fast as a complementary supply solution to traditional housing. (Colliers)
Argis’s Flipco Retiro project was the case study everyone referenced. The 179-unit flex living conversion of the former Metro de Madrid HQ that opened in April was cited in three panels I attended. Office-to-flex-living is no longer a thesis. It is a comp. (Iberian Property)
Patron’s Vandor sale process kept appearing in hallway conversations. Buyer chatter, price discovery, and what cap rate will print. Everyone has a view. Nobody has a deal yet. (Green Street News)
The 40% Investec stat is now the canonical opening line of every coliving pitch. I heard it five times in three days.
If you missed SIMA, the deeper take is this: Spain has quietly become the most legible flex living market in Europe. Not the biggest. Not the most mature. But the most legible with the cleanest narrative for institutional capital, the clearest case studies, and a regulatory landscape (in Madrid, at least) that is openly inviting capital.
Scion + Ares Drop $910M on US Student Housing: The Coliving Leading Indicator
On May 20, Scion and Ares closed the acquisition of Harrison Street’s 12-property, 7,578-bed US student housing portfolio for $910 million. Scion’s owned book now exceeds 105,000 beds, making it, by a comfortable margin, the largest student housing owner on the planet. (GlobeNewswire · Multi-Housing News)
Why am I writing about a student housing deal in a coliving newsletter?
Because PBSA is the leading indicator for coliving capital. When institutional money pours into student housing at scale, the same capital starts asking about adjacent asset classes: coliving, flex living, senior coliving, and BTR within 12 to 24 months. That is the historic pattern in the UK. It is now the pattern in the US.
And the data supports it. Knight Frank’s UK Q1 2026 PBSA update, published mid-window, shows £2.1 billion invested in UK PBSA in Q1 alone, the strongest first quarter in over a decade. The sector is now valued at £84.8bn. Operational sales accounted for 65% of deals. (Knight Frank · Property Week)
What this means for coliving operators?
The institutional buyer pool is not shrinking. It is growing and re-segmenting. If you are positioning for an exit in the next 36 months, your buyer is in the room; they are just buying student housing first this year.
Watch the JV structures. Scion + Ares is a model that will get copied for coliving. Operator capability + capital partner. Same shape, different asset class.
Run a clean book. Operational sales = 65% of UK PBSA Q1 deals. The market is rewarding stabilized, well-managed assets, not promising development pipelines.
Habyt Exits Southern Europe. What is “Asset-Light” in 2026?
Two weeks before SIMA, on May 11, Habyt quietly sold its France, Portugal and Spain coliving portfolios (Paris, Lisbon, and Madrid assets) to three local operators. (Habyt Press)
Stack this on top of the Mitsubishi Estate APAC deal from April 28 (covered two editions ago), and the picture is now unambiguous: Habyt is no longer trying to be a vertically integrated multi-region operator. It is becoming a brand and a distribution platform.
The new Habyt strategy, as I read it:
Larger hospitality-led flex living properties (~300 apartments each), not distributed coliving books
Brand and distribution licensed to local operating partners in each market
A new asset-light coliving sub-brand reportedly in development
I want to be careful here, because the operator-or-platform question is the single most important strategic decision facing every mid-sized coliving company in the world right now. There is no universally right answer.
Asset-heavy operators can capture more margin, build deep operational moats, and own the customer relationship end-to-end. But they accept enormous capital intensity, talent overhead, and exposure to local regulatory shocks.
Asset-light platforms can scale faster across geographies, ride lower fixed costs, and pivot quickly. But they live or die by their distribution edge, and the margin per resident is structurally smaller.
Common (RIP) tried to be asset-heavy at venture-capital speed and ran out of runway. PadSplit (covered two editions ago) is pure platform-with-debt and is now at 32,000+ rooms. Habyt is now choosing platform. Outpost + June Homes (survey just dropped this week) are operating ~4,000 units as an actual operator at scale.
The interesting question is not which model wins, both can win in the right hands. The interesting question is whether you have honestly decided which one you are. The operators who get hurt the worst are the ones who are quietly playing both games at once and pretending to themselves they have a strategy.
Quick gut check: Are you asset-heavy or asset-light? Reply with one word, “operator” or “platform,” one word, and a one-line reason. I’ll share the breakdown in the next edition (anonymized).
The Assembly Place Launches Singapore’s First AI-Powered Coliving and the Hilton Apartment Collection Goes Live
Two stories landed in the last 10 days that I want to put next to each other, because together they tell the story of how the format wars are evolving.
Singapore, The Assembly Place. Around May 28, Singapore-listed TAP announced a 15-year lease on a dual-block 26,889 sq ft site at 27 and 29 Lorong 22 Geylang. 80 rooms. Opening October 2026. And here is the bit that made me sit up: an on-site “AI Lab” for build nights, demo days, and resident mentorship. The first branded “AI-powered coliving” property anywhere in the world. (Globe and Mail / TipRanks · EdgeProp)
NYC/DC/Atlanta, Hilton Apartment Collection. Hilton’s new Apartment Collection (with Placemakr) opened bookings in the window studio to 4-bedroom furnished apartments. Roughly 3,000 new units via Placemakr added to a 10,000-unit apartment-style global inventory. (Hilton · Upgraded Points)
Different formats. Same trend. Both are operator brands sharpening their wedge in a maturing market.
The Assembly Place is differentiating on community + audience. “Come live with 80 builders shipping AI products.” That is a specific human, with a specific reason to choose this address. It is also defensible; you cannot copy a community by spending more on rent.
Hilton is differentiating on trust + global distribution. “It’s a Hilton, so you know what you’re getting.” That is also defensible; you cannot fake brand recognition that took six decades to build.
What both of these say to mid-sized coliving operators is simple: generic, undifferentiated coliving is the asset class with the worst forward-looking margins. Either you have a tight audience nobody else can reach, or you have a brand someone bigger will eventually want to acquire, or you have a cost structure nobody else can match. Pick one.
If you want help thinking through which wedge you can build, the first call is no-strings. Book it →
Everything Else Coliving
The deals, projects, regulatory moves, and ecosystem shifts that didn’t get a deep dive but absolutely belong on your radar this fortnight.
Outpost + June Homes Drop First Post-Merger Tenant Survey (US)
OJH Holdings (4,000 units across major US metros) released its first joint tenant survey since the November 2025 merger. The standout numbers: 97% rate price as very important. 93% rate location. 57% say a flexible lease is a must-have or highly important. 72% have a $1,000-$2,000 monthly housing budget. 65% are 18-30. 52% are full-time professionals. 81% moved for a specific reason. (PR Newswire · Yahoo Finance)
Translation for operators: flexible lease term is the third lever, not the first. Price and location still beat everything. If your pitch deck leads with “flexibility,” your pitch deck is upside-down.
UK Consolidation Watch
loc8me acquired Liverpool’s Luxury Student Homes, 199 properties, ~1,100 beds. loc8me’s Liverpool footprint goes from ~400 to ~1,500 beds; national portfolio approaches 10,000 rooms across 19 cities. (GSL Global · Property Wire) Renters’ Rights Act consolidation is real and accelerating in the UK student/HMO space.
UK Project Approvals & Pipeline
Durham Prince Bishops Place 504-bed PBSA + mixed-use scheme poised for council approval (May 29). Landmark Properties’ third UK development. (GSL Global · Dentons)
Macfarlanes published a legal note on co-living and the UK regulatory landscape, Top-tier law firms publishing on coliving is itself a signal that institutional client demand is showing up. (Macfarlanes)
UK Industry Self-Regulation
UK BTR Alliance launched a Rental Living Code of Practice and Customer Charter at UKREiiF 2026 (May 19-21, Leeds). Grainger, Quintain, Legal & General, and Moda are among signatories. (ARL) If you operate coliving in the UK adjacent to BTR, you will be expected to adopt or align with this Code within 12 months.
US Policy: ROAD Act Strips Sell-Down Provision
The 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act passed the US House 369-13, dropping the Senate provision that would have forced institutional BTR investors to sell single-family homes to individual buyers after 7 years. (Commercial Observer) Major political overhang on US institutional living capital is now gone.
Washington State Coliving Zoning
Renton, WA’s Ordinance 6192 zoning expansion continued to roll out through the window, implementing Washington House Bill 1998. Coliving must now be allowed in any zone permitting six or more multifamily units. Cities cannot impose stricter standards than for other multifamily. (Renton Reporter) Washington remains the regulatory pace-setter for US coliving.
BookMyColiving: Free Forever Listing for Coliving Operators
Quick reminder if you missed the last two editions: BookMyColiving is the world’s first free-forever discovery platform for shared-living operators. Direct tenant connections. No commission. No middleman. 200+ cities. 70+ countries.
If you operate even one property and haven’t listed yet, list it here →, five minutes, no upsell, no tiers.
If you operate at scale and want a direct API integration to push your inventory, hit reply. We are actively building those with several large operators right now.
Events Worth Putting on Your Calendar
National Co-Living Conference Denver, June 5-6 (this week!). The premier US gathering for owner-operators. If you’re in North American coliving and you’re not going, you should reconsider. (Details →)
Coliving Conference 2026 UK. 4th edition of the global flagship event. (Details →)
Urban Living Festival, London, September 14-15. UK industry’s cross-format event covering coliving, BTR, PBSA, serviced apartments. (Details →)
Women’s Coliving Summit, Atlanta, October 16-17. (Details →)
What I’m Thinking About This Week
I want to come back to the asset-heavy vs. asset-light question, because it is the one I cannot stop turning over in my head after SIMA.
Habyt, which six months ago was Europe’s most ambitious vertically integrated multi-region coliving operator, has now sold off APAC, France, Portugal, and Spain within four weeks. Mitsubishi Estate now owns the APAC operation under the resurrected Hmlet brand. Local players own the Southern European books. Habyt itself is becoming, as best I can tell, a hospitality-led flex-living brand plus a distribution platform.
This is not a failure story. It is a strategic clarification story. Habyt looked at where margin and durability actually live in coliving in 2026 and concluded: brand + distribution + larger hospitality-style assets beat distributed, mid-sized, locally-operated coliving books. That is a real argument.
But here is the part I keep coming back to: the operators who run good buildings, who actually know their residents, and who can build a real community at 80 to 200 units, they are also sitting on a real argument. They will not scale at platform speed. But they will own deep customer relationships in their local market. And in a world where the institutional buyers are circling, those deep relationships are the asset.
I have lived both sides of this. I started as a coliving customer. I have operated. I have advised. I have built BookMyColiving as a platform. I run Everything Coliving as a services business. Different roles, different optimisations.
What I have learned is this: the worst outcomes in this industry happen when operators borrow the language of one model while running the financial structure of the other. Asset-heavy P&Ls dressed up in asset-light pitch decks. Platform-speed growth promises on operator-level margins. That mismatch is what kills companies. Habyt is, in its own messy way, fixing that mismatch in public. So is OJH. So is PadSplit. So should you.
Question for you: Are you running the financial structure your strategy actually requires? Reply and tell me where the mismatch is in your own business, anonymised or attributed, your choice. I will feature the best honest answers in a future edition.
Until next time,
Mayank Pokharna
Everything Coliving · BookMyColiving · LinkedIn · Podcast
