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Co-Living market news for property investors

Private ensuites, resident independence and the future of co-living in Melbourne.

Weekly edition · Builder's perspective · 19 October 2026

The bathroom line: why private ensuites will decide the future of co-living in Melbourne

Opinion piece by Neeraj Tuli · Director, Enable Group

I build these homes for a living. Enable Group works in high-compliance construction: rooming houses, specialist disability accommodation, childcare and medical centres. My view after years on site is simple. The future of co-living in Melbourne will not be decided by how many rooms you can fit on a block. It will be decided by where you draw the bathroom line.

Who is renting now

Melbourne's typical advertised rent is now $600 a week, or $31,200 a year, according to the realestate.com.au report cited in the article. Anglicare Victoria reports that the median rent in metropolitan Melbourne has risen about 40% since 2022, when it was $420. These are separately reported measures, not a single rental series.1 2

Even a one-bedroom flat in metropolitan Melbourne was reported at about $490 a week in the March quarter, up 20.8% in a year, using Homes Victoria data as reported by MyLifeHacks.3

In my view, the gap between wanting to live independently and being able to afford a whole home is where co-living sits.

The share-house problem

The traditional answer to that gap has been the share house: a three or four-bedroom family home with one or two bathrooms, split between people who never chose each other.

It works on price. But anyone who has lived in one knows the trade-off. The bathroom queue at 7am. Joint liability on a single lease, where you can be chased for a housemate's unpaid rent. Little privacy, and no say over who moves in.4

People will put up with that at 22. Far fewer will at 35, 50 or 65. Yet more of the people looking at shared living are in exactly those age groups. That is my perspective on how resident expectations are changing.

Why the ensuite changes everything

The market already prices privacy. Listing guides put a standard single room in Melbourne at roughly $280 to $380 a week, and an ensuite room at $350 to $480. These are guide ranges cited in the article, not achieved rents or a like-for-like comparison.5

Your own private quarters

Your own room, lockable and private, and your own bathroom, with no roster and no queue.

Company where it helps

Shared kitchen and living spaces for the parts of life where company helps.

An individual agreement

An individual agreement, not joint liability for the whole house. That is the model we build at Enable Group, with private quarters and an ensuite for each resident.6

From the traditional share house

I think this model can take market share from the traditional share house. For a modest premium, a resident gets privacy and a bathroom of their own. Once people try that, few want to go back to sharing one.

From the one-bedroom apartment

For many single renters, a $490 one-bedroom flat is a stretch. A well-designed ensuite room, with a quality kitchen and living area shared with a small group, gives most of the privacy at a lower weekly cost. This is my view of the opportunity, not a forecast of achieved rents or market share.3

Not every shared home is built this way, and that is the point. The product is splitting in two: older, converted houses with shared bathrooms, and purpose-built homes designed around privacy from day one.

Where the product is heading

The ensuite becomes the standard

I believe the shared-bathroom rooming house will not disappear overnight, but it will become the budget end of the market. As more ensuite stock is built, residents will compare against it, and older shared-bathroom homes will compete on price alone.

Projects get bigger and capital gets deeper

Knight Frank reports that the average co-living scheme is growing, from 37 units for completed projects to 130 for those proposed. Commercial Real Estate reports that national supply has passed 10,000 units including the pipeline, but only about 2,000 are operating today. Most of this sector has not been built yet.7 8

Melbourne catches up with Sydney

Urbis notes that co-living activity is concentrated in Sydney and is only beginning to spread to Melbourne, partly because Victoria still has no specific planning definition for co-living. BDO describes the sector following the same path as purpose-built student accommodation and build-to-rent, which needed planning recognition, proof that the operations work, valuation consistency and lender confidence before they went mainstream. I expect Victoria to move along that path, and a clear planning definition would speed it up.9 10

Small, well-designed homes stay important

Some councils, including Knox, are lobbying for permits to be required for every rooming house. If that happens, I believe the operators who have built well and managed well will be the ones with the strongest case.11

The resident base gets broader

Co-living is no longer only for students and new arrivals. I see it moving towards key workers, single professionals, separated parents rebuilding their finances, and older Australians who want company without giving up their independence. That is why we also design shared homes for seniors who co-buy with people they choose, and dual-key homes for families.6

A builder's outlook, not a prediction of returns

The views about future resident preferences, market share and planning recognition are Neeraj Tuli's opinions. They are not guaranteed outcomes or a forecast of investment performance.

The bathroom line

The question is what kind of shared living we build. Homes that respect privacy, dignity and independence will, in my view, hold residents for longer and stay compliant as standards rise. Homes that don't will become harder to rent and costlier to fix.

At Enable Group, we draw the bathroom line in the same place every time: one resident, one ensuite.6

I'd like to hear from people working in this space. Do you think private-ensuite co-living will take serious market share from the traditional share house and the one-bedroom apartment over the next decade?

Enable Observer is a collation of publicly available data and industry observations by Enable Group. It is general information only, not financial, legal, tax or investment advice. Figures are drawn from the third-party sources listed below and may change. Seek advice from qualified professionals before acting.

Adapted from The Bathroom Line: Why Private Ensuites Will Decide the Future of Co-Living in Melbourne, by Neeraj Tuli, Director, Enable Group. Advertised rents and market figures are those cited in the supplied article, not independently refreshed figures. Household projections, room-rent tracking figures, minimum-standard checklists, licensing penalties, planning thresholds and general management guidance already covered in Observer have not been repeated. The article's opening reference to 'Last Monday, 13 October 2026' has been omitted: 13 October 2026 was a Tuesday. This is general information from a builder's perspective, not financial, legal or investment advice. Seek independent professional advice before making any property decision.