The rapid growth of the coworking industry or the inclusion of proptech companies in the universe of the purchase and sale of real estate, are some of the factors that have forced the real estate market to mark a new roadmap for the next years. It is clear that coworking has impacted and will continue to do so in real estate, but how and in what aspect is real estate being affected?
We currently live in a volatile environment, in which everything changes at a dizzying speed and in which adaptive capacity is essential to survive. And real estate was not going to be less. The crisis added to the technological development experienced in recent years has led to the emergence of new solutions that optimize the productivity and profitability of companies.
The shared workspaces allow companies to save on one of the main costs, rents, in addition to all the supplies that a traditional office implies. This might seem like a threat to the real estate sector, but the reality is different. The big beneficiaries of the arrival of the coworkings are the companies dedicated to the purchase, sale and rental of real estate. Many old properties with good locations are being acquired and rehabilitated for the opening of these collaborative work centers. Wasted spaces in shopping centers and other remote locations in the heart of the city are reinventing themselves to become coworkings.
The American consultant Gartner said in its report entitled "Strategy for the integration of coworking in real estate" that coworking is a very attractive option for small and medium enterprises, as well as startups that do not have enough liquidity to deal with the rental of A complete office.
Another report prepared by the real estate consultant JLL shows that around 50% of workers under 35 work in third places and many of them choose coworkings for it. If we add to this fact the great positive impact of shared work spaces for users, in terms of efficiency, happiness, productivity and personal and work growth, we are faced with an environment that is totally conducive to the development of this new model of work and the need of real estate to adapt.
A clear example of adaptation and use of opportunities can be seen in Colonial, the large real estate firm, which this year absorbed one of the greats of Spanish coworking, Utopic_US. Following in the footsteps of another of the multinationals in the real estate sector, Merlin, who have acquired a 42% Collaborative Innovation, another company dedicated to coworking. These are examples of how a sector as traditional as real estate is adapting to new forms of market, paying attention to existing supply and demand.
Coworking will quadruple between 2017 and 2020, according to Emergent Research. These figures will have a direct impact on the real estate market over the next few years. Corporations dedicated to shared work spaces are the main real estate claimants, ahead of other sectors such as finance. Prime income rises and real estate companies rub their hands thanks to the coworking industry.
