Co-living housing-as-a-service and COVID-19 : micro-housing and institutional precarity

![CDATA[Part of the wider trend in shrinking domesticities has been the rise of co-living housing businesses. In this chapter, we argue that a key reason why co-living providers have been able to successfully shrink domestic space is due to the sector’s adoption of a ‘servitisation’ business model, increasingly referred to as ‘Housing-as-a-Service’ (HaaS). Specifically, we contend that the HaaS approach used by co-living providers enables these businesses to nimbly navigate ever-evolving regulatory environments – that is, the institutional precarity – of housing markets. Through an analysis of the sector in New York City, we illustrate how co-living housing operators responded to the rapidly changing regulatory environment created by the COVID-19 pandemic by quickly adapting core co-living services. The HaaS structure of New York City’s co-living businesses allowed many operators to not only survive the institutionally precarious circumstances catalysed by the pandemic but also thrive under these conditions. More broadly, we demonstrate that new housing entities – such as co-living housing – may not be as vulnerable to regulatory disruption as industry advocates portend. These findings should be front of mind as and when new forms of shrinking domestic space are developed, regulated, and governed.]]