00:00I think it's interesting that the developers are calling this co-living or collaborative
00:05housing when in fact it's separately tenanted rooms within a house or a building, which
00:11is not what cooperative or collaborative housing normally means, which is where a group of
00:15people essentially share a house by agreement and are known to each other and form a household
00:22as it were amongst themselves. This is actually separate sub-tenanting. It's much more like
00:26a boarding house or a rooming house than any sort of co-op living.
00:31So developers are actually building new properties with that in mind. It could look from the
00:36outside to, or is, one house, but there's perhaps two or three couples living in it?
00:42Separately locked bedrooms with adjoining bathrooms to them. It's not people who are
00:48coming together as one group to share this property. It's separate tenancies within one
00:55house.
00:56So the advantage being that the rent is a lot cheaper than they would be able to afford
01:01renting an apartment on their own?
01:02Well that would be the case for cooperative housing. What the developers in this case
01:06are promoting is actually much higher revenue for the landlord by having separate tenancies
01:11within it. That's not really a cooperative housing model. That's much more like a boarding
01:16house model but with higher rent.
01:19So the developers are on the side of saying we can help solve the housing crisis by getting
01:26more people in one property?
01:28Well yes, although they're not arguing that. They're arguing better revenue for investors.
01:33I think we need to draw a distinction between cooperative housing that is collaborative
01:38in nature and is people choosing who they live with from separate tenancies within bedrooms
01:44of a house, which is a different model, much more like a disused model of group homes that
01:50used to be used in disability accommodation, where people don't have a choice about who
01:54the other occupants of their home are. So I think these are quite different models.
01:58OK, this is something that we see in other countries much more. Is there more of an uptake
02:05on it with cost of living, with the lack of housing here in Australia?
02:09Of the genuine cooperative housing, yes, there is an uptick in interest in cooperative housing
02:13in deliberative design methods where people will come together as a community and have
02:18a development that they'll then live in, and other forms of cooperative household or property
02:24models. Yes, absolutely, we're seeing an uptick in that. Very small numbers in Australia still,
02:29but it is growing.
02:30And is it generally younger people, couples?
02:33No, no, it's all age groups. We're often seeing older people moving into this as a means of
02:39downsizing, to share a property with people they know, like-minded people that they can
02:44share with, as a cost-saving measure.
02:48And a cost-saving measure, but also, I guess, a social support network measure.
02:53Certainly in a sense of community. I think people in cooperative housing tend to talk
02:56about a couple of things. They talk about security of tenure and knowing where they're
03:00going to live longer term rather than just being on shorter term leases or feeling vulnerable
03:06in the rental market. They talk about cost savings by sharing, but also that real sense
03:11of community and belonging that comes with being part of a close-knit community.
03:15Michael, are there rules different by state as to what can happen in this space?
03:21Well, in the sort of model that these developers are marketing, yes, there are. The rules around
03:25boarding houses, rooming houses, lodging houses, it even has different names in each jurisdiction.
03:30There are quite different sets of regulation and legislation controlling what's possible
03:36and what's available. So where we're seeing something that looks to be bypassing those
03:40to market it as cooperative, when in fact it's quite different, is something we should
03:45look at closely.
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