From Loneliness to Community: How Casa Mia Coliving is Transforming Living in Singapore

Casa Mia Coliving in Singapore offers young professionals more than just a room, it’s a community-focused, flexible, and affordable coliving solution. Discover how this innovative approach is tackling the loneliness epidemic among Gen Z and millennials by pairing compatible housemates, offering fully furnished homes with inclusive amenities, and fostering a vibrant community in the heart of the city.

Summary:

• Coliving as a Solution: In an era where 1 in 3 young adults feels often lonely, coliving spaces like Casa Mia are rising in popularity by providing built-in community and support.
• Casa Mia’s Community Impact: Casa Mia Coliving has helped over 1,300 residents from 80+ countries feel at home in Singapore, with an average stay of 14 months, a testament to the strong sense of belonging it cultivates.
• Affordable, Flexible Living: Members enjoy fully furnished rooms, weekly cleaning, maintenance, and Wi-Fi included, with transparent pricing about 30% cheaper than renting a studio apartment. Lease terms are flexible, letting young professionals live in prime locations without long-term hassle.
• Compatibility Matters: Casa Mia carefully screens applicants for a “communal mindset,” ensuring housemates are compatible. Regular social events and thoughtful roommate matching create a harmonious living experience that turns a shared apartment into a real home.

The New Way to Live in the City

Moving to a big city like Singapore can be exciting yet isolating, especially for young professionals and expats arriving alone. In fact, a recent study found that one in three Gen Z and millennial adults feels always or often lonely. High rent prices often push newcomers to live by themselves in tiny studios or hop between short-term rentals, which doesn’t help with making friends. coliving has emerged as a refreshing solution to these challenges, offering not just a roof over your head but a community to come home to.

Recently, the founders of Casa Mia Coliving, Eugenio Ferrante and Ahmed Nizar, explained on Money FM 89.3 how coliving is reimagining what it means to live and belong in a modern city.

Listen to the full episode here.

Casa Mia Coliving’s mission is simple: provide young people a comfortable, affordable home in Singapore and a circle of friends to share it with. It’s a concept that’s rapidly gaining traction, turning the old idea of “roommates to save money” into an intentional lifestyle choice for community and convenience.

More Than a Room: It’s a Community

When people hear “coliving,” they might picture cramped dorms or chaotic roommate situations from college days. Casa Mia Coliving is nothing of the sort. Imagine renting a room in a spacious apartment, coming home to housemates you genuinely get along with, and having regular social events to bond with not just them but dozens of others in the coliving network. That’s the Casa Mia experience.

From day one, Casa Mia’s focus has been on building a vibrant community. They thoughtfully match housemates based on compatibility and shared interests. In each apartment (typically about 3 to 5 people), your roommates become your first circle of friends. But it doesn’t stop there, Casa Mia has about 100 homes across Singapore, forming a network of around 500 members living together at any time. Frequent community events bring everyone together: from monthly “First Friday” mixers where all Casa Mia members city-wide meet for drinks, to weekend activities like hiking at MacRitchie or group fitness classes. These gatherings make it easy to meet people beyond your immediate flatmates. Many members end up exploring Singapore together, and some even travel abroad together, a few Casa Mia housemates even went on a trip to Tomorrowland in Belgium as friends!

It’s no surprise that Casa Mia’s community vibe keeps people around. Members stay an average of 14 months, far longer than a typical short-term rental, because their Casa Mia apartment truly feels like home. As co-founder Eugenio Ferrante puts it, people come looking for a place to live but end up finding “a tight-knit community with a shared focus”. Some coliving houses cater to particular interests or demographics (for instance, Casa Mia has clusters of apartments near universities for postgraduate students, as well as homes aimed at young working professionals in the city center). No matter the theme, the emphasis is on connecting with others. In an increasingly individualized world, this sense of camaraderie is priceless.

Designed for Compatibility and Comfort

A happy coliving home starts with the right mix of housemates. Casa Mia takes this seriously, in fact, about 30% of applicants don’t make it through their screening, which is less about being “exclusive” and more about ensuring those who join truly want to live in a shared space. Prospective members fill out a questionnaire designed with input from psychologists to gauge traits like communal orientation (basically, how open you are to sharing and engaging with others), interpersonal trust levels, and general personality. Don’t worry, they’re not looking for party animals or extroverts only. In fact, many Casa Mia residents are friendly introverts who simply appreciate a warm, social home environment. The goal is to filter out those who prefer to be completely alone or might not respect communal living norms. If you aren’t even willing to say hello to your neighbor, Eugenio quips, coliving might not be for you! On the flip side, if you’re open-minded and excited to be part of a community, you’ll likely be a great fit.

Casa Mia’s team also helps set expectations and ground rules so everyone is on the same page. Every member has a private furnished bedroom to make their own, and housemates share common areas like the living room and kitchen. Importantly, these apartments are nothing like a student dorm, there are no bunk beds jammed into tiny rooms or lines of people waiting for a shower. Casa Mia limits sharing to a reasonable level: at most 3 people per bathroom, and many rooms come with an en-suite or a two-to-a-bathroom ratio. This means you won’t be fighting over the toothpaste or finding all the hot water used up every morning. It’s a real home, not just a crash pad.

To keep things running smoothly, housekeeping is provided weekly for common areas (yes, someone will come to clean the kitchen, living room, and shared bathrooms!). Of course, basic courtesy is expected, as co-founder Ahmed Nizar jokes, having a cleaning service isn’t a free pass for mess: every member should still clean up after themselves in daily life. Dishes in the sink or hair on the floor shouldn’t be left for someone else. This balance of professional cleaning plus respectful housemates means the homes stay clean and pleasant. And if two housemates ever hit a rough patch over habits or misunderstandings, Casa Mia’s team is there to mediate or even arrange a swap to a different house if needed. In practice, such conflicts are rare because of the upfront matching process. The result is a harmonious living situation where roommates often become genuine friends.

Affordable City Living, With All the Perks

One of the biggest draws of coliving is how cost-effective it is relative to traditional renting. Singapore’s rental market is notoriously expensive, especially for someone early in their career. A private studio or one-bedroom condo in a central location can be prohibitively high for a single income. Casa Mia Coliving offers a smarter alternative: renting a room in a shared apartment can cost around 30% less than renting a comparable place all on your own. For example, Casa Mia’s room rates range from under S$1,000 to around S$2,500 per month, depending on room size and location. There’s something for different budgets, whether you’re a recent grad on a tighter budget or a young professional willing to pay more for a larger master room.

Importantly, those rates are transparent and inclusive. Unlike many conventional rentals, with Casa Mia there’s no haggling over agent fees or surprise add-ons. You pay a fixed monthly membership fee for your room, and then just your share of utilities based on actual usage. Every Casa Mia room comes fully furnished (bed, wardrobe, desk, etc., all ready so you don’t need to spend on furniture) and includes high-speed Wi-Fi. As noted, weekly cleaning and maintenance support are part of the package too, if a light bulb goes out or the air-con needs servicing, Casa Mia handles it. This all-in-one model means you can move in with just your suitcase and not worry about buying appliances or setting up Wi-Fi or finding a cleaner. It’s hassle-free living by design.

Flexibility is another key perk. Traditional leases in Singapore often lock you in for 12 or 24 months with hefty penalties for early termination. In contrast, Casa Mia offers flexible contracts, shorter minimum stay commitments and easier transfer options if you need to move to a different location within their network. This is ideal for expats or anyone who isn’t ready to commit to a long lease. Whether you’re testing out living in a new neighborhood or plan to be in Singapore for just a semester of study or a work project, coliving can adapt to your timeline. Members can extend their stay or move between Casa Mia homes as their needs change, without the headache of finding a new place from scratch.

And let’s talk about locations: Casa Mia homes are set up in some of the most vibrant neighborhoods in Singapore. They started in the popular River Valley area and have expanded to hip enclaves like Tiong Bahru and the upscale Orchard Road vicinity. You’ll also find Casa Mia houses in the West near educational and tech hubs (perfect for graduate students or researchers at NUS or one-north who want more independence than a dorm). The strategy is to choose areas with great access to cafes, eateries, parks, and public transport, places young people want to live. Living with Casa Mia means you’re not stuck out in an industrial suburb to save money; you can actually afford a place in the city’s coolest districts, plus instantly have friends to explore the locale with.

A Founders’ Vision: Belonging in a Modern City

Casa Mia Coliving’s story began with the founders’ own experiences. Both Eugenio and Ahmed spent years moving around the globe for work, from Europe to North America to Asia. Along the way, they lived in all sorts of housing arrangements, some good, many not so ideal. They’ve been in the shoes of the newcomer struggling with a bad roommate who eats your food from the fridge without asking, or being tied down to a year-long lease in a city area that turned out not to fit your lifestyle. They even made the classic expat mistake of arriving in Singapore expecting a “fully furnished” apartment to include basics like bedsheets and a microwave, only to discover that in the local market it meant just a bare-bones furniture set. These frictions and surprises gave them the idea that there had to be a better way for mobile young people to settle into a city. Why shouldn’t renting be as easy as checking into a hotel, yet as enriching as joining a college campus community?

In 2019, they launched Casa Mia Coliving to fill that gap. And it appears they were onto something big. As Ahmed Nizar noted in the interview, “coliving is fast becoming a distinct asset class on its own and I think it’s here to stay.” In other words, this isn’t a short-lived trend or just a stopgap for when rents are high, it’s a fundamental shift in how people want to live in urban areas. Investors have noticed the sustained growth of coliving too: Casa Mia Coliving even secured seed funding from international investors to accelerate its expansion. The company has grown steadily through the pandemic years and beyond, proving that the demand for community-oriented housing is robust. High satisfaction ratings and reviews underscore that they’re doing something right. Casa Mia regularly surveys its members and boasts a Net Promoter Score (NPS) far above the norm for the real estate industry, meaning residents are very likely to recommend the experience to friends. In an expensive property market like Singapore, to have young professionals enthusiastically promote a rental housing provider says a lot about the value they’re getting.

Looking ahead, Casa Mia is focused on Singapore for now, continually refining its model here. But the vision doesn’t stop at the Lion City. The founders see potential in other cities around Asia that have a similar combination of factors: a sizable population of young working professionals, high housing costs, and a need for more community in day-to-day living. We might eventually see Casa Mia communities pop up in other dynamic cities where making new connections is just as valuable as finding a place to stay. After all, the core idea of Casa Mia, making it easy to live well and belong in a new city, is universal.

Coliving: Home is Where Your Community Is

At its heart, Casa Mia Coliving is showing that home is more than just four walls, it’s the people you share it with. In a time when so many 20-somethings and 30-somethings are relocating for opportunities and adventure, coliving offers a way to skip the loneliness and dive straight into a supportive community. The old stresses of moving, finding furniture, committing to long leases, feeling isolated in a new city, are eased by a setup that is flexible, fully furnished, and full of friendly faces.

For young professionals in Singapore, Casa Mia provides an appealing trifecta: affordability, convenience, and camaraderie. You can live in a cool neighborhood you love, save money and time by sharing resources, and come home to friends (or at least friendly faces) instead of an empty room. And for those watching the real estate market, it’s clear that coliving is carving out a permanent niche as a lifestyle and asset class, responding to the evolving needs of the modern urban workforce.

As the Casa Mia founders would say, coliving is about “reimagining what it means to live and belong in a modern city.” It’s a reminder that even in a fast-paced, high-tech metropolis, we all crave connection. Sometimes, simply having someone to ask “How was your day?” or join you for dinner can make all the difference. With concepts like Casa Mia Coliving, that sense of belonging isn’t an accident, it’s built into the very fabric of where you live.

Interested in experiencing coliving in Singapore? Learn more about Casa Mia here. You just might find that your next apartment comes with not just housemates, but friends and a whole extended family in a new city. Home really can be where your community is.