Serviced residence construction costs: care homes, student housing and coliving

A serviced residence is not an apartment block with a few amenities added; it is a hybrid between housing and hotel, with a proportion of shared space markedly higher than in conventional apartments. That proportion is precisely what explains the premium.

In standard apartments, shared space, hall, corridors, plant rooms, parking, represents 15 to 25 % of the total area. In a student residence the common areas, study room, laundry, gym, shared kitchen, add another 15 to 20 %. In a care home the collective spaces, dining room, lounge, physiotherapy room, activities, nursing stations, reach 35 to 45 % of the total usable area. Every square metre of shared space is one that generates no direct rent but contributes to attractiveness and occupancy.

The reference area: usable, not floor or habitable

Serviced residences are priced on usable area: the net area of private spaces and of the collective spaces open to residents, excluding vertical circulation, risers and plant rooms.

The ratio of usable to floor area is typically 0.72 to 0.80 for a care home, where the plant areas are substantial, 0.78 to 0.85 for a standard student residence, and 0.76 to 0.83 for coliving.

To compare a serviced residence ratio with an apartment ratio, both must be converted to the same reference area; the apparent gap can otherwise mislead.

The ratios exclude VAT, land, fees and external works, in provincial values. The alternative unit, per bed or per room, is the sector reference; it is less sensitive to variations in area per unit than the ratio per square metre.

The care home is the serviced residence with the most demanding standards, and therefore the dearest to build per unit. Recent regulation has reinforced the minimum requirements on area and equipment, consolidating the move towards individual rooms and quality of life for residents.

The total premium of 37 to 57 % over standard apartments does not reflect luxurious construction, it reflects precise normative requirements: a minimum area per resident, medical and technical equipment, collective care and activity spaces, full universal accessibility. Every item of that premium has a documented regulatory or medical justification.

The trend towards smaller living units and care at home

Faced with the high cost of traditional care homes, two alternative models are developing: assisted-living residences for older people with low dependency, whose ratios sit closer to social housing at 1,840 to 2,450 €/m² usable; and small living units of 12 to 24 residents, which reduce the collective spaces and adapt the brief to real needs.

These alternatives cost 20 to 30 % less to build than a traditional care home, at the price of reduced capacity and a different organisation of care.

The student residence is the cheapest serviced residence to build per room, but also the one where density is a major economic lever. Its logic is simple: maximise the number of rooms on a given area by sharing the common spaces efficiently, laundry, study areas, communal kitchen, gym.

The market has segmented into two models. The publicly managed residence targets accessible rents with functional finishes: ratios of 35,500 to 51,000 € a room. The premium private residence targets international students and the grandes écoles: ratios of 56,000 to 76,500 € a room with quality common areas, premium coworking and concierge services.

The standard student room, 18 to 22 m² usable, is the most optimised unit in all residential property: a compact kitchenette, a shower room with level access, integrated storage and fibre connection, all within 20 net square metres. That extreme optimisation shows in the gross cost per square metre, 1,840 to 2,650 €, which looks high but translates into a reasonable cost per room thanks to the compactness.

Coliving is the most recent and least regulated segment. It targets young professionals and mobile workers, offering private rooms with en-suite bathrooms and generous shared spaces: communal kitchen, lounge, coworking area, terrace.

Coliving differs from the student residence in the size of its common areas, 25 to 40 % against 15 to 20 %, and in the level of finish, closer to a three-star hotel than to student housing. Those two factors explain the premium of 10 to 25 % over a standard student residence. The typical room is 20 to 30 m² usable with a private bathroom, bringing it close to a hotel room in fit-out terms.

An emerging variant is senior coliving, shared housing for independent older people who want to break isolation without moving into a care home. These programmes sit at intermediate ratios of 2,040 to 2,860 €/m² usable, with full accessibility but no medical equipment, or very little. The development of this segment, still marginal in France, is worth watching for developers positioned in the silver economy.

For every serviced residence, programme size is a major economic parameter: the shared spaces, catering, reception, management facilities, carry a fixed cost that is amortised the better the more units there are.

The band of 80 to 120 units is the economic optimum for most serviced residences: large enough to amortise the shared spaces and the management staff, compact enough to stay manageable and hold a good occupancy rate. Below 40 units the cost per room takes off; above 200 the gains are marginal and the commercial risk of local saturation rises.

For a serviced residence the outline estimate is structured in two distinct parts: the ratio for the private rooms or dwellings, comparable to apartments, and the ratio for the shared spaces, comparable to an office or public building according to use. That split lets the developer simulate different briefs, with more or fewer common areas, and assess their effect on the cost per lettable unit.

The economist can also produce a whole-life analysis incorporating the anticipated rental income and the operating costs, staff, maintenance, energy, an essential document for convincing the investors and funders of a managed residence.

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Serviced residences cost 5 to 55 % more than standard apartments, according to type. The standard student residence at 35,500 to 66,500 € a room is the most accessible, thanks to compact units and relatively light standards. Coliving at 46,000 to 92,000 € a room sits between student housing and hotel. The care home is the most constrained at 81,500 to 153,000 € a bed, with a regulatory premium of 37 to 57 % entirely justified by requirements on area, medical equipment and accessibility. For all three, the optimum programme size lies between 80 and 120 units, the threshold at which shared spaces are efficiently amortised.

Reference basis of the figures

These bands are orders of magnitude for framing, and their reference market is the Paris region. They serve to place a budget at the earliest stages and to compare building types with one another. They replace neither a tender exercise nor an estimate prepared on drawings, and they are not a record of prices actually charged.

The ratios per square metre and per item on this page are stated in January 2026 values. They were updated from January 2025 values, the basis adopted for the whole cocoon, using the BT01 all-trades index published monthly by INSEE on its 2010 base: 132.0 in January 2025, 134.7 in January 2026, a rise of about 2 %.

The global amounts quoted as examples, and any rents, charges or receipts expressed per year or per night, remain on their own basis: a building cost index does not apply to them.

To bring the ratios forward, apply the usual revision formula: updated value = page value × (BT01 for the month in question / 134.7). The index has kept rising since: it stood at 138,3 in June 2026, the last value published when this page was checked, that is 2,7 % above the reference base. BT01 measures contractors' input costs, wages and social charges, materials, plant and energy, not the prices actually tendered.