India’s one of the leading conglomerates Shapoorji Pallonji’s Real Estate is intending to kick start a shared living and student housing project to stretch its portfolio and capitalize on an alternative asset class that has targeted the millennial who rely on renting instead of owning homes.

The brand builds luxury to mid-income homes, and would now build the co-living projects in Pune and Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR) that begins next year.

In an interview, Venkatesh Gopalkrishnan, Chief Executive of Shapoorji Pallonji Real Estate says, “We will start co-living and student housing projects in a measured but serious manner as an offshoot of our projects. Over the next decade, we see a huge potential because of the demographics, increased work from home, and rising spend on education, and there are not many organized players. In the mid-to-long term, it has to be rolled out as a separate business, and partnered with an investor to scale up."

Both the co-living and student housing sector have been affected severally due to reverse migration amid COVID as the working people, as well as students, have returned back to their hometown opting for work from home and remote learning.

Shapoorji Pallonji Group ranks as one of the mainstream real estate developers who have entered into the co-living space and have been dominated by investors-backed startups.

Lately, Bengaluru-based real estate firm Embassy Group had launched co-living business Olive by Embassy, which targets the growing, young working population in metros. This month, it also launched its service residences brand, ‘Olive Residences’, under an asset-light management model, in which Embassy will manage the property and earn on revenue- and profit-sharing basis. Under the new brand, it plans to launch 100 buildings by the 2021-end.

Aditya Virwani, Chief Operating Officer of Embassy Group, states that it is an agile and scalable model with smaller properties that can be acquired from hotels or other co-living operators and could be managed for a fee.