Spain embraces co-living and flex living. The Netherlands tries to put it in a box.

Not everyone is looking for a home for the next twenty years.

A young professional works two years in Madrid. An expat spends nine months in Barcelona. A recently divorced parent needs decent housing at short notice. A graduate wants to build a network before buying.

For these groups, the market in Spain is growing fast. In the Netherlands, it barely exists.

The numbers side by side

Spain had approximately 12,500 operational flex living units at the start of 2025, with a pipeline of nearly 19,000 additional units. Flex living was the largest sub-category within the Spanish living sector in 2024, attracting €1.25 billion in investment, equivalent to 45% of total living investment volume. In the first nine months of 2024 alone, €974 million flowed into flex living, nearly double the same period in 2023. Cushman & Wakefield projects that Spanish flex living supply could triple to approximately 30,000 units by 2028. Madrid, Barcelona, Málaga and Valencia are the primary development hubs.

The Netherlands has a fundamentally different picture. Flex housing here is built primarily as temporary social rental housing, not as professionally operated residential concepts for young professionals, expats or other flexible target groups. In 2024, the Dutch government subsidised the delivery of 2,643 relocatable flex homes across 22 municipalities through the Stimuleringsregeling Flex- en Transformatiewoningen. The ambition was 37,500 flex homes by the end of 2024, but these are largely modular social rental units, not co-living in the Spanish sense. A professional co-living or flex living market targeting international workers, young professionals and expats barely exists in the Netherlands.

That is notable, because more than 50% of the Dutch population lives in an under-occupied home, which creates a structural demand for smaller, more flexible housing forms.

What co-living and flex living actually are

Co-living combines a self-contained or semi-self-contained living space with shared facilities and services: workspaces, common rooms, sports facilities, rooftop terraces, community management and events. Flex living is broader: fully furnished apartments for stays ranging from a few weeks to a few years, with internet, utilities, cleaning and services included.

It is not about fewer square metres. It is about more value per square metre.

The Spanish market organises this as a hospitality product. The rent covers not just a space but a full package of services. That produces a different operational model than a standard rental unit. Prime yields in the Spanish flex living segment stand at around 4.40% in Madrid and Barcelona. Some projects report higher net returns, strongly dependent on location, occupancy and service level.

Living Experience operates on exactly this logic: furnished units, all-in service component, flexible contract duration, targeting young professionals and expats. In Granada, Madrid and the Benelux.

Why is this growing in Spain but not in the Netherlands?

Three structural reasons.

First: Spain has a large international target group. The country attracts digital nomads, foreign workers, students and retirees. That demand exists in the Netherlands too, but is not being systematically served.

Second: stacked living and shared facilities fit more naturally into Spanish urban culture. In the Netherlands, the single-family home remains the central norm, in policy as much as in practice.

Third, and this is the structural difference: in the Netherlands, a property must legally fit into one of two categories. Standard residential or hotel. Everything in between runs into discussions about zoning plans, tenancy law, household definitions, service charges, registration, parking standards and permitted length of stay. That legal ambiguity is a structural brake on the market.

The downside of the Spanish model

Spain has a problem the Netherlands should take seriously.

New flex living projects in Madrid and Barcelona are primarily aimed at international target groups and higher incomes. Local tenants on average incomes are being priced out. At the same time, there is a risk that flex living is used to circumvent standard rental regulation through a service component that keeps the base rent artificially low.

A transparent product is therefore essential. The resident needs to know what the base housing component costs, which services are included, how long the contract runs, and what rights and obligations apply. A small apartment with a coffee machine in the hallway is not a co-living concept.

What the Netherlands can learn from Spain

The Netherlands needs a legal framework for professionally operated residential concepts with a flexible character. That framework should accommodate stays of a few months to a few years, transparent service contracts, professional operation, registration at the address, genuinely shared facilities, and protection against sham constructions.

Municipalities should designate specific locations for co-living and flex living: around public transport hubs, universities, hospitals and economic centres. The conversion of vacant office buildings offers a direct opportunity: co-living conversion projects reduce construction and development timelines by 30 to 45% compared to new builds.

Not every resident immediately needs a traditional home. But every resident does need a safe, high-quality and appropriate place to live.

What Spain can learn from the Netherlands

The Netherlands has more experience regulating the rental market and protecting affordability through housing corporations and tenancy legislation. That knowledge is largely absent in Spain, where the market is primarily driven by institutional capital. The risk of displacing local tenants is greater in Spain than in the Netherlands.

A mixed model, combining affordable units with market-rate flex living products within the same building, is the lesson Spain can take from the Netherlands. The Netherlands has the instruments. Spain has the market momentum. The right approach sits somewhere in between.

The conclusion

The housing market is not only about buying or renting permanently.

Students, young professionals, expats, recently divorced adults and temporary workers are looking for something different: flexible, high quality, services included. In Spain, a professional market for exactly that is growing, with €1.25 billion in investment in 2024 and a pipeline of 19,000 units. In the Netherlands, the equivalent is 2,643 modular social rental homes across 22 municipalities.

The question is not which legal category co-living belongs in.

The question is which housing problem it solves. And whether the Netherlands is willing to adapt its regulation accordingly.

This is the fourth article in a series in which TEN compares European housing markets with the Netherlands.

Sources: Colliers, Residential Spain FY 2024 (€1.25bn flex living, 45% of living investment volume; 12,500 operational units, 19,000 pipeline). Cushman & Wakefield, Spain Living Marketbeat 2025 (19,100 flex living units; projected growth to 30,000 units by 2027). Neinor Homes / CBRE press releases February 2025 (€974M in first three quarters of 2024; projected tripling to 30,000 units). Greystar / Bain Capital transaction press release January 2025 (Be Casa: 4,800 units including pipeline). CBRE, European Living Outlook 2026 (>50% under-occupancy in the Netherlands and Spain). Dutch Government, Stimuleringsregeling Flex- en Transformatiewoningen 2024 (2,643 units, 22 municipalities, €20.6M). Grand View Research, Global Co-Living Market Report 2025 (USD 7.82bn; CAGR 13.5%). Living Experience, operational data 2025 (Granada, Madrid, Benelux).