This commercial rental model is not current, yet may be employed in future projects. Should you be interested in investing please signup to the mailing list and we'll update if such opportunity arrises. You may also reach out to directly to Jacob Jay, jacob@hub.house.
For our current project we are now using a co-operative multi-stakeholder model based on FairShares, this caps investor yields in favour of social impact whilst encouraging community backing, each project now having a 35% non-user (investor) preference shares allocation.
For consumer examples and details of the first candidate development locality please refer to our public crowdfunding proposition.
Every community needs a space within which its members may connect, exchange and further their collective values or intent.
An open and welcoming space that is also able to draw in neighbouring peoples and communities, greatly enhances its own capacity to then connect everyone together and generate serendipitous opportunities. Nowadays many such spaces are online, e.g. in the form of mailing lists and whatsapp groups…
This proposal provides a model for the redevelopment and repurposing of physical spaces with accommodation — thus having the capability to allow longer interactions, furthering relationship building and knowledge exchange amongst participants whom may not normally cross paths face to face.
A goal of the model is to expand the space's own community reach across multiple diverse locations, furthering the spread of beneficial ideas, skills and opportunities through the movement of its members amongst them, and in exchanges with local communities.
It is able to do this (if at limited pace) by generating revenue and reinvesting an allocated proportion of its profits for the development of new spaces and programmes as a social enterprise (or other similar form).
Assuming fundraising for a single property the first additional location would be possible in the 13th year after return of the original investment, or 8th with deferred return; each property then funding another around every 5 years (without dividends). This could be reduced utilising debt (mortgaging).
The model includes inviting thought leaders and skill practitioners to share their knowledge, in the form of retreats or ad-hoc classes and interactions. This might be expanded for specific fields with dedicated programmes.
The proposed space has 23 bedrooms with the capability to accommodate up to 45 people at a pinch, and host more than 50 in its events room with ample presentation area. Outdoor courtyard space (with weather adaptable capability) could host double this.
Should the space be operated with a remit to provide facilities to a community through a profit allocation, doing so whilst offering the accommodation free to selected participants is possible — without an operations impacting revenue reduction.
100% usage of capacity over the 3 winter months reduces profits by 30%, 1 month in summer reduces by 25% or 3 months mid-season by 55%. However such a philanthropic application of the space need not obviously be fully subsidised.
Furthermore exclusive usage over any period diminishes the dynamism of a space and possibility of interactions across more diverse fields and communities, therefore a better approach is to integrate into normal operations across the year, with a limit on its utilisation of accommodation capacity for any such specific remit.
The model has a powerful role in rural redevelopment, bringing professionals back to previously depopulated locations by providing a hub space that dynamises and connects its visitors with the local community — through which opportunities can emerge, be supported and thrive.
The model also intrinsically supports UN Sustainable Development Goals. It enables diverse local and visiting participants to benefit each other through its shared space and ecosystem of exchange…
Targetting 10 properties in 10 years with a valuation at €12m, from profits of €0.6m+/year, and funding of €2.5m. This timeframe could be reduced by bringing onboard an additional cofounder for field management of simultaneous properties during their development.
As demand increases the brand and its reputation can expand with a network of similar locations, to a much greater extent than competitors, utilising our low-overhead model that enables successful expansion without the significantly higher costs of metro operators (yet with the disadvantage of slower growth).
As the targetted professionals tend to move from one such space directly to their next there is a strong opportunity to leverage a network of spaces, maintaining the customer relationship throughout their journeys. There also exists a strategic opportunity with residential coliving operators in cities as a 'retreat' partner.
All these properties do however need extensive work and time to locate for a similar proposition. The model itself can be adapted to more expensive properties such as those in large towns and to new build, which would add variety within a network of locations and further strengthen customer loyalty. Or capital may be increased to reduce the time to market.
There would be no intention to operate at the higher market level to compete with other multi-location operators, thus prime city properties would not be considered unless subsidised by local government under redevelopment programmes, or should demand from an expanded customer base warrant locations in second-tier locations which present potential whilst being acessible to primary metros.
There also exists poential in some locations to develop properties with a focus on permanent residential coliving, however such opportunities should be persued with a seperate entity.
As the model is asset-heavy, it leaves much capitalisation in the properties. We foresee a growing desire to own such facilities by the users themselves and as such expect to be able to sell fractional ownership across the network of properties. This would thus enable the locked up capital to be returned to investors with a corresponding gain from the increased valuation, or to be reinvested for expansion.
Much as coworking gave rise to community-based workspaces, coliving is doing the same for living spaces—both leverage and create benefits from their superior shared facilities, often at a lower individual cost than equivalent traditional approaches, and without long-term commitments.
Remote and location-independent work is ever growing and likely to reach a significant majority of the workforce in the coming decades. Online work frees many from the typical single-location approaches to both living and working, thus resulting in their needs being considered together for lifestyle 'geoarbitrage'—the selection of more affordable and novel locations serving work-life balance. These location-independent professionals are often termed 'digital nomads' although the segment includes many other classes of work other than online, such as fitness and wellbeing.
Such professionals thus seek locations from which they can both live and work for the mid-term, whether they do it in new location on an ongoing basis, or only as a retreat from their usual base, yet always with the purpose of connecting within communities around the world.
These hubs can also have local community impact, by virtue of drawing outside experience and knowledge to its locality and opening up opportunities to local people, through ad-hoc and serendiptious exchanges, through talks and workshops, or simply tours and events organised by locals.
Despite this growing demographic such spaces are presently emergent (a few dozen) and equally split between multi-location brands or immensely varied independent 'lifestyle' operators. It is thus difficult to find trusted spaces to stay and use as a supportive base for work, from amongst these choices. Many potential residents attempt to find apartment and room sublets, or pay the premium for booking on AirBnB. Both of which typically also require signing up for a seperate coworking space.
Operators target this segment with differing models. There are the ad-hoc from cruises several times a year (taking 400+ attendees), through year-long programmes that take their participants around the world every month (Remote Year having received 200,000 applicants, for programmes accommodating only 80) to popup villas for a couple of months (AirBnB's free 3-month remote-work sabbatical had 40,000 applicants in 48h). Whilst amongst fixed-location operators there are small apartments with only a couple of bedrooms through to repurposed hotels functioning as higher-end hubs.
Due to the size of the market and its growth, and the tendency of customers to travel from one space to another, we do not consider other operators as direct competition. Each new operator increases awareness within the market and each has its own unique offer. To leverage this we are working to establish a shared identity and marketing efforts to reach our guests and residents.
Providing value through being a community-orientated hub requires that a space have certain optimal capacities, therefore we exclude both smaller and larger operators from comparison. (Offerings with 3 or 600 units are clearly of a different scope than an optimal community having 12–24 units.)
Our target is mid-season monthly rent from €280 (single, shared bath) to €790 (studio), yet with seasonal variation of as much as 230% we create an opportunity to really differentiate whilst maximising revenue. Most mid-market operators lack equivalence in specification, but do generally have superior locations (islands and cities versus semi-rural), we therefore position our ensuite rooms against their standard rooms and undercut by around 30%.
Some of the independent properties have strong dynamic communities and charge a corresponding premium for this, whilst the larger multi-location brands due to their scale and costs don't invest into their communities in the same way, leaving the proposition primarily focussed around their facilities. We plan to only use properties that support suitably sized communities, enabling us to scale whilst maintaining community, in this manner we may latterly increase our rates to further leverage this combination.
A semi-rural property as proposed here for France, makes for an accessible and very well-known destination. Whilst most other operators are in cities, with a mid-market price-point we offer ensuite rooms and an interesting countryside environment for balance. The space would also appeal to the demographic of city-based workers (now the vast majority of the world's population) whom seek to reconnect with the countryside, and can to take their work with them for workations.
Demand for more rural locations can but increase as fewer and fewer people have connections to the natural world, making opportunities to live and participate in rural activities desireable, providing it doesn't lack expected comforts and facilities.
Our rates versus other operators ensure that our offer is much more competitive for longer stays, providing increased revenue reliability. Furthermore the offer spans customer segments from budget to premium, accommodating many guest profiles under the one roof.
An additional 3-month winter season rate discounted 55% is extremely competitive against long-term apartment rentals, but due to a less desirable climate functions mainly as a mechanism for building word-of-mouth awareness and reducing vacancy.
During an awareness building phase the rates will be further reduced, and latterly increased as market demand continues to grow. The rate brackets will be adapted per demand and to balance against potential revenue from secondary targets such as nightly tourism guests (B&B) during peak season.
[we] foresee that one should be able to buy into a community-like neighbourhood in the future, sharing the financial costs, but also sharing the potential gain […] you could be the co-owner of a larger space, while only using a small piece of it privately, challenging the very definition of home ownership as we know it today— An Educated Guess About the Future of Real Estate (Partech, Daphni)
Whilst meytro-operators have great difficulting in finding suitable properties, scouting more rural and suburban locations yields a wide variety of properties. Nonetheless those that are compatible with the model are generally buildings historically built as open plan factories yet retaining a local style, rather than more impressive chateaus and historic homes which are difficult to repurpose.
Industrial buildings are cheap to acquire but demand labour in order to redevelop. They exist within non-prime towns and villages improving the proposition versus entirely rural locations. Good internet is the second most important criteria and is rarely available outside towns. (In coming years this will not be an issue as low-orbit satellite internet becomes available.)
The building presented here is given as a likely candidate and example of what is possible, the images do not represent accurate fitout nor finish.
This property is located in a very small quaint if unremarkable town (2k pop.) with basic services including some cafes and restaurants thus acceptable for longer stays. At 1h from a good selection of year-round low-cost airports, stations and larger towns (75k+) it is quite well connected at the expense of typically requiring a transfer by car.
Location is on the edge of a natural park providing great wilderness and countryside for adventurous exploring or gentle activities alike, such as along a railway converted as a greenway and a popular summer tourist location. Regional rail connections are possible to Paris (5h15) and Barcelona (3h15) including the drive to the station. (For comparison, the next nearest operator to Barcelona is 6h.).
The building allows very good space utilisation, offering a variety of accommodations from a pod dormitory for staff and as a budget option, to ensuite rooms and several generous 35m2 studios. All of course benefit from the coliving principle of fantastic shared spaces — multiple station kitchen and dining, plus seperate kitchenette upstairs; workspace with generous desks for each person, and two living rooms. Besides these there's additional nooks to work or relax around the building as well, including a river-fronted courtyard, and not to forget utility rooms for bikes, laundry and luggage storage by those returning frequently or wishing to use the property as a longer-term base.
A significant feature is a large 170m2 open plan event space independent from the rest of the building, which enables events to be held without disrupting residents.
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This is a preliminary outline of a proposed project thus details are not intended to be a specific representation. jacob@moonmill.com