Property Herald: Co-Living rental market in Singapore

Introduction

Co-living space can be described as hostel rooms for adults. The space are usually private non-landed residential units or individual rooms that are rented to individuals, couples or even bigger group of tenants.

About a decade ago, there were only a handful of co-living space operators, probably fewer than ten.

Today, there are more than 30 co-living space operators. There are a few bigger operators, such as Coliwoo, Assembly Place and lyf with many smaller ones.

Mode of co-living space operations

The co-living space operators usually rent the residential units from the property owners in order to subsequently rent out the rooms to individual tenants. These could be individual residential units in a condominium or apartment development. The other units in the condominium development could be occupied by the owners or other tenants who do not rent from the co-living space operators. A small number of operators, such as Coliwoo and lyf, owns some of the properties used as co-living rental units.

The co-living units and rooms are fully furnished with chairs, tables, sofas in the living room; and bed, desk, chair and basic wardrobe space in the bedroom. The tenants can move in with just their luggage.

Some co-living space operators even provide basic cleaning services for the units. But tenants are typically expected to maintain the basic cleanliness of their living space.

Locations of co-living properties

The co-living properties are primarily located in the Central, East and West regions, with a higher concentration within the Central region, including the Core Central Region (CCR) and the city-fringe areas.

Examples of the locations of co-living properties are in the River Valley area, Beach Road, Middle Road, Bugis and Chinatown areas.

There are also a smaller number of co-living properties located in suburban Outside Central Region (OCR) such as at Jurong East and in the East Region such as Kembangan and even as far as in Pasir Ris. These properties may cater to tenants who work in the business parks in the Jurong area in the west region and in the Changi Business Park in the east.

Co-living space rental rates

Co-living space rental rates are usually a few times more expensive than renting the entire unit from the individual non-co-living landlord on a dollar-per-square-foot ($psf) basis.

The monthly rental rates of co-living units and rooms can range from $10 to $36 psf. By contrast, the rental rates of comparable private apartments and condominium units in the OCR can range from $3 to $7 psf per month.

Table 1: Examples of co-living units and rental rates listed in July 2026

Co-living property name	Location	Market Segment	Size (sq ft)	No. of bedrooms	Rents (S$/mth)	Rental rates (S$psf/mth)
The Trumps	Jalan Kembangan	OCR	150	1	$1,600	$10.67
The Trumps	Jalan Kembangan	OCR	180	2	$2,500	$13.89
Ivory Heights	Jurong East Street 13	OCR	155	5	$7,000	$45.16
Coliwoo Midtown	Middle Road	RCR	111	1	$3,800	$34.35
Coliwoo Midtown	Middle Road	RCR	151	2	$9,950	$66.00
Coliwoo Midtown	Middle Road	RCR	390	2	$6,500	$16.67
lyf Chinatown	Mosque Street	RCR	118	1	$4,275	$36.23
lyf Chinatown	Mosque Street	RCR	366	2	$8,550	$23.36
lyf Chinatown	Mosque Street	RCR	215	2	$5,670	$26.37
Coliwoo River Valley 268	River Valley Road	CCR	95	1	$3,000	$31.74
Coliwoo River Valley 268	River Valley Road	CCR	136	1	$2,700	$19.78
Coliwoo River Valley 268	River Valley Road	CCR	172	1	$3,500	$20.30

Source: Mogul.sg Research

Co-living space operators justify the higher rental rates as they take on the risk of leasing the residential properties for a longer term, such as two years or more from the property owners and curving up the properties into smaller space or individual rooms and renting out such space for short durations to meet the needs of different tenants.

In addition, the co-living space operators also provide value-added products and services, such as furniture, electrical appliances and cleaning services.

Effects of co-living space on the residential rental market

We believe that the presence and growth of the co-living space market contributes to the rising rents in the private housing market.

Firstly, the presence of co-living space operators increases the demand for residential rental properties. When the co-living space operators rent the residential units from the property owners, the operators are competing with tenants who seek to rent similar properties from the individual non-co-living space landlords. The operators, who typically have deeper pockets than the individual tenants, could out-bid the latter, resulting in higher rental rates and less available stock for the other tenants.

In addition, as the stock of available private residential properties for rental in any given location is limited in the short term, the higher demand would drive up the rental rates in that location.

Furthermore, the higher rental rates of co-living space would also have an inflationary effect on the rentals of comparable non-co-living rental properties. This is partly because non-co-living landlords may use the co-living space rentals as a reference when determining the rental rates of their own properties.