Practice between for-sale and rent in South America
Practice between for-sale and rent in South America 4/5
Listener Takuto Sando (Tsubame Architects )
Narrator Kenji Lopez(Urvita)
Have you made changes to the activities and programs that you offer for your
residents?
Yes, we have had to make changes. For example, we now hold our yoga and workout
sessions online. But for other activities, such as our calisthenic sessions, we have started to
do outside on the terrace in very small groups of four to five people spread apart. We have
also been going on more hiking trips, because it?s one of the safest activities we can do right
now. The mountains probably have actually become one of the most popular destinations now
that people can?t go to the shopping malls, restaurants, or bars to spend their leisure time. I
think it?s a good thing that people are realizing that there are a lot of other ways you can have
fun. We are also thinking about offering urban getaway plans so that people from around the
city can leave their home for a couple of days to enjoy the great hospitality experience of our
buildings. It would give people who are getting tired of spending time in the same place a
way to go on a small vacation in their own city and to temporarily change homes. The most
important programs at a time like this are those focused on helping people maintain their
wellbeing and mental health, for example, by cooking at home or working out at home. These
are the kinds of programs that our residents value.
What are your future plans for Urvita?
Our plan is to start replicating our model with local partners in other cities in the world,
because we believe that many cities suffer from the same problems of disconnection, a lack of
a sense of community, and unaffordable costs of living. These are global problems. Our focus
is not just to make housing affordable but to make wellbeing affordable, and because the city
is the hardware of wellbeing, we need to change how we develop it. Right now, we are
validating the feasibility of our model in hopes of accelerating funding to do so. We need to
show that we can fund the development and management of complete buildings through local
crowdfunding and investors. We feel that we have an even better case now that we have
managed to generate stable revenue even through the pandemic. This has helped us prove
that our model of affordable and flexible housing is resilient?even more so than commercial
and office real estate, in fact. As we have a comprehensive platform for funding, developing,
and managing properties, we are hoping to partner up with developers and professionals
interested in implementing our model in other cities and to share with them our know-how.
We have actually already been receiving offers from other countries in South America, and we
are also currently working on developing a property for students near a university in Spain.
Japan is another place we would love to do this. For us, Tokyo, in particular, is a great
example of a vibrant city where we imagine our model could work especially well.