Coliving soars: Common expands to SF and DC with $16M funding round

Fortune Magazine’s website reported this morning that Brooklyn’s king of coliving, Common, received $16 million in funding and has plans to expand to San Francisco and Washington, D.C.
Common, though not the first coliving experiment, may be the first to be making it work. In February the company launched its huge third space, on Havemayer Street, bringing the total number of beds to more than 100.
Coliving, for the uninitiated, is akin to coworking. Rather than each individual having their own apartment, each person has their own bedroom, and shares common spaces and amenities with everyone else in the house. Rents for the bedrooms in the Havemayer house run from $1,800 to $2,700, which is not exactly cheaper than what you would find in the area, but given that many household expenses and all utilities are included, is maybe not quite as eye-popping as it would first seem.
In January we asked if 2016 would be the year of coliving.
In D.C., San Francisco and Brooklyn space is definitely at a premium, and rents are high. In each of these places, zoning laws restrict building higher buildings in many places. Coliving fits more people into the same space than existing arrangements.
If the forces of supply and demand won’t be satisfied by spouting up into the sky, they might be satiated by squeezing folks in more densely.