3 Ways the Sharing Economy is Impacting Everything We Know

With the internet becoming a part of almost everyone’s daily lives and getting the world more connected than ever, it has quickly become a great resource to help develop the sharing economy and facilitate that sharing to occur. If you are not familiar with the sharing economy, it is the idea that something you own is shared with another individual or that you share something that another individual owns.

The best example of the sharing economy and what really brought the idea to the forefront is Uber the ridesharing platform, which has completely disrupted the taxi industry and paved the way for other sharing economy startup ideas. Let’s look at a few ways that the sharing economy is impacting commercial real estate.

1. Changes in Transportation

As mentioned above, ridesharing companies like Uber and Lyft are having a serious impact on the taxi industry, but also many other industries —including commercial real estate. Not only does it have an impact in the current market, but we will most likely see its biggest impact much further into the future. With transportation changing, it will change the way we look at location in real estate and the amount of space needed.

Ridesharing may be more cost effective for individuals, allowing them to live outside of a major metro to take advantage of cheaper rent and lose the expense of the car. The other impact from ridesharing is that parking may become something that is not in such high demand. With individuals carpooling or using Lyft, the number of vehicles needed may significantly drop with the number of parking locations required in a building to follow shortly after.

2. AirBnB

A company called AirBnB may have the biggest direct effect on commercial real estate when it comes to the sharing economy. If you are not familiar with AirBnB, it is essentially the Uber of houses and apartments.

Basically, someone posts on the website an extra room they have or an apartment or guest house and anyone can sign up to stay in that place for a predetermined amount. For CRE, the biggest impact is the hotel industry, as most people who use AirBnB are more than likely choosing a place to stay through the service as opposed to staying at a hotel. Individuals are even using extra rooms in their homes just to make extra money through the service.

3. Shared Office Space

The impact of the sharing economy, as well as the growth in freelance work, has given way to more co-working spaces and shared office space. These are allowing smaller businesses or individuals to have an office space other than the coffee shop for just a short period of time.

This well end up reducing the amount of office space that some companies need and the footprint they take up. It will also give them the chance to possibly share some of their office space with a different company. This could be beneficial by locking in extra space for growth, but still earning some revenue off that extra space until it is truly needed.

Written by Nicole Brzyski for Coldwell Banker Commercial Affiliates