Noah Living Joins Common's Brand Family, Focuses on Workforce Housing

Workforce housing is set to get a boost from Common’s newest brand, Noah Living.

Launched this week, Noah Living’s mission will be to partner with real estate developers, landowners and investors to refresh and modernize existing buildings. Together, they will ensure that the buildings are expertly maintained, keeping price points attainable for renters while also offering them perks and benefits. Those perks include but are not limited to prescription discounts, financial planning tools, and free security deposit options.

Multi-strategy firm Outlier Realty Capital is serving as Noah’s first workforce housing partner.

“Through our long-standing relationship with Common’s co-living multifamily product, we saw an instant opportunity to partner with Noah and redesign how our traditional multifamily portfolio properties operate. We are thrilled to collaborate with Common as it kicks off its workforce brand focused on delivering a better experience to residents, ” said outlier Realty Capital Founder and Managing Partner Peter Stuart. “ By focusing on acquiring and preserving naturally occurring affordable housing with Noah as our partner, we expect to bring a differentiated living experience to residents and produce attractive returns for our investors.”

“I see Noah as the next logical step in our mission to add value to the renting experience, and we’re fortunate to have a launch partner in outlier Realty Capital that truly shares Noah’s vision,” said Common founder and CEO Brad Hargreaves.

Workforce housing, which applies to both home ownership and rental properties, is defined by the Urban Land Institute as “housing that is affordable to households earning 60 to 120 percent of the area median income.” According to the National Association of Realtors, workforce housing has also been defined as affordable if housing costs are no more than 30-40 percent of a worker’s income. Research from CBRE indicates that a lack of investment in new workforce housing development has contributed to a growth in aging apartments across the country as well as a shortage of supply.

This will be Noah’s first residential portfolio in Virginia. The new brand plans to expand from the nearly 500 units it presently manages to 1,200 units throughout the country by the end of 2020, focusing on workforce housing. Through 2022, Noah plans to further expand nationally with a focus on Mid_Atlantic and Sunbelt, adding approximately 8,000 apartments to its workforce housing portfolio.

Common, a co-living startup founded by Brad Hargreaves, opened its first home in 2015.