“We are an old new brand.” This is how Vanesa Esteban defines CoTown, the newly created company of which she is the executive director. CoTown has been created this same month of June for the management of shared apartment buildings. It was born from the experience of Vanguard Studing Housing and thanks to the financial support of the Patron Capital investment fund. In fact, the mother company will be subject to the new one and will be called VSH by CoTown.
“We started managing a student residence and immediately detected the need to create shared flats for older students”, recalls Esteban. "When we opened the first shared apartment in Barcelona, 15 years ago, there was nothing like that," says the executive director. Times change, and nowadays, it's not just students who share a flat. CoTown has been created to respond to this new market demand. "Now we are addressing anyone who wants to share a flat, as digital nomads," says Esteban.
CoTown has eight buildings in Barcelona and two more that will come into operation in September. It also has a presence in Valencia, with a building under management and two on the way. On the other hand, they plan to land soon in Bilbao and Madrid and are studying making the leap to Portugal. "These are complete buildings, to generate a greater sense of community, and located in central areas," says Esteban. The goal is for “the customer to feel like a local, not like a foreigner,” he adds. Some of the buildings are owned by the company.
Based in Barcelona, a dozen people work directly between CoTown and VSH by CoTown. The executive director refuses to give a billing estimate due to the recent creation of the company and its great variability based on the number of contracts obtained.
