A glance on our data

Happy Pigeons started humbly with one apartment in 2017. Currently we have 5 apartments in 2 locations (14 coliving members) and a community/ coworking space with an active coworking community of around 11 coworking members from the neighborhood. Besides some other regular members who join some of our weekly events.

We are staying consciously small, not looking to drastically scale up at the moment. Our aim is to build a small tight community in Berlin and to live and work in a sustainable way while being on the lookout for the right partners/ collaborators.

While we are approaching the end of 2019, we decided to look back at our data in order to understand our community better and to help us see our next steps.

Happy Pigeons’s number of Coliving Apartments Timeline.

As shown in the “Timeline” Happy Pigeons had 2 Appartements in 2017, adding another 2 in 2018 and one in 2019.

Applications

Since we started, we received more than 800 applications. In 2019 alone we received 447 till now (mid October) with an average of 47 applications per month.

The numbers are rapidly increasing as shown in the graph, even for a relatively small coliving space. One can see that the demand for such spaces is increasing rapidly.

Accumulated numbers of coliving applications

Who are the applicants?

People come from all over the world, doing all sorts of things.

It is a reminder that people are different; all have their own journey that they are embarking and for some reason, those who applied, had one thing in common, the need to live in a community and share their life and living space with others in Berlin.

All nationalities of the coliving Applicants in %

Top 12 nationalities of applicants in numbers

Surprisingly the number one nationality is German, followed by Americans, Indians, Italiens, British and Spanish.

However, our applicants are not that diverse in terms of age or marital status, they are mostly young people in their twenties.

The average age is 27, although we had applicants from 18 till 50 years. Most of them are single or not living with their partner.

In a nutshell, our applicants are international, young, and single.

Applications for a “Single room” vs for a “Couples room”

Who are our Coliving-Pigeons?

Our maximum Capacity until now is 14 Coliving-Pigeons. In total since we started we hosted 28 (including the current members)

Our ex-pigeons (Alumni) stayed an average of 7.5 months in house, ranging from 3 to 18 months.

One Pigeon left us to travel then life brought him back again to his nest while 2 of the oldest Pigeons are still staying in their nests. So we have kind of a core stable community with a mix of different individuals, staying mid- and long-term.

As for Coworking, our space is not exclusive to our coliving community members. It is also open for the people in the neighborhood serving as our proxy to get integrated and to build bridges between our small international community and the local community of the neighborhood (more on this in Part 2 of this blog post series).

Currently we have 11 coworkers and hosted already another 23 other coworkers since we started. Our coworkers are mainly freelancers who live nearby and/ or prefer the cozy space where they can have a personal relationship with their coworkers.

Analysis of rents in the neighborhood (Prenzlauer Berg)

We took a look at Data of WG-gesucht, extracting 153 entries on the 23rd of October.

Methodology: The data was scraped out of the available date on the website on that date, manually deleted the short term entries-less than one month- of course this includes all kind of ads, furnished, unfurnished, temporary/ permanent, also scams and other possible fault entries)

The average monthly rent was 520€ (ranging from 250€ To 1100€) and the average size is 20 m2.

According to an old report from the Guardian, Berlin Miete map, analyzing Immobielienscout24 data, average monthly rents for a one Bedroom apartment near Prenzlauer Allee S-bahn station reaches 672€.

Pigeons‘ coliving price breakdown

Our average room is 22 m2 and our average rent in Prenzlauer Berg is 655€. All rents include all bills and utilities, such as operating, heating, electricity and wifi, as well as a weekly cleaning service for the communal areas and a 24 hours access to the coworking space*, located on the ground floor of the same building. Not to mention the “intangible side effects” of living in a welcoming community with different events, gathering, outings...etc.

Our average prices are still within the logical market range and we are trying to cut down our costs to be able to provide better services and build an actual community that is not isolated from the neighborhood.

Summary

There is an increasing demand in coliving of mainly people in their 20s and early 30s from all around the world. However a big part of our applicants are from within Germany.

Happy Pigeons has 14 coliving pigeons with an average stay of 7.5 months. The wider community including coworkers and neighbors reaches +30 persons.

Our average room in Prenzlauer Berg is 22 m2 and costs 655€ with all bills and coworking space included.

In the next part of this blog post series we will discuss in detail how we are trying to connect our small community with the local neighboring community, how our community space is used by different parties and share some of our ideas on how to move forward with Happy Pigeons.

Written by : Hazem, Kai and Marc

*average cost for a coworking (flex) desk in Berlin is 220€ https://coworkingguide.de/coworking/coworking-preise/

3 Years of Happy Pigeons- Part I