CO-SHARED CONDOS

Just a thought experiment here: why is co-living—or shared condo leasing—so rare? In many parts of the world, it's completely normal.

Take “Friends,” for instance—Joey and Chandler, Monica and Rachel—roommates splitting the rent in Manhattan. When I joined a student exchange abroad, I shared a flat with three others. We divided rent, utilities, and even fridge space. It was efficient, social, and affordable.

So why doesn't that setup fly in condos here?

Is it the fear of a messy flatmate? Hire house help and bake the cleaning fee into the rent. Problem solved. The landlord also gets to monitor the upkeep of the place through the helper.

Is it the risk of subsidizing an empty room? But if the whole unit’s vacant, aren’t you subsidizing everything anyway?

Maybe it's about demand—are people just not interested? But I suspect plenty of renters in studios or cramped one-beds would jump at the chance to upgrade to a two-bed, even if it’s shared.

Let’s break it down:

Say you have a 100 sqm unit leasing for Php80,000/month. The master bedroom is 20 sqm, the second bedroom is 15 sqm.

You could split the rent 60/40:

Master bed tenant pays Php48,000

Second bedroom tenant pays Php32,000

For that price, each gets more breathing room and access to 45 sqm of shared space—living, dining, kitchen, balcony, maybe even a study. That’s a huge lifestyle upgrade from a studio or small one-bedroom.

So what’s stopping us? Outdated norms? Market perception? Landlord hesitation?

I don’t know. With the upcoming EDSA rebuilding, co-sharing of living quarters might be the solution that we're looking for. 🙃