Co-living—a setup where a building's bedrooms are private, but pretty much everything else is communal—has a bad rap for being only for the bravest of souls. Residing with more than a dozen complete strangers and navigating their unique habits does sound more like Real World than real life. But is that a fair assessment? Here, lifestyle blogger Misti Schindele, who lives in a shared home in Brooklyn run by start-up Common, tells us what it's really like.

I was living in Chelsea for about nine and a half years—basically since I moved to New York City—when I found out in May of last year that I was going to have to move rather suddenly. I had 15 days total to pack up almost ten years of my life and find a new place to live. Moving in New York City is not an easy feat. You need to have a lot of money saved up. Trying to find a new apartment is kind of like the The Hunger Games. As I was searching for mine, I started to look for possible different living opportunities. I have a blog on the side, and I remembered going to an event that was held at a co-living facility. So, I Googled "co-living NYC" and Common came up.

One of the big things I was looking for was, could I easily get into the city? Because I do have a full-time job in Manhattan, I do have events to go to. I didn't want to have to worry about a three-hour-long commute. All the Common houses I looked at were a 20-minute subway ride, so everything was very doable. I liked the look of all the spaces, and, most important, the price was within my budget. So, I filled out the inquiry form, and they called me back within five minutes. I was not expecting that! I did a tour on Saturday and fell in love with the house I'm in now. I filled out everything that night. When you're trying to find other apartments in New York, there's the bidding wars, there's all the different checks you have to do, there's going through the broker. Getting it all done over a weekend was mind-blowing to me.

The fully furnished communal living room in Briar, one of Common's shared houses in Chicago. Photo: Seth Caplan/Courtesy of Common

The apartment I was living in before was rent stabilized, so it was hard to base anything on that, because you can't find that in the city! I had to be like, Realistically, how much can I spend on rent per month without going broke or living paycheck to paycheck? I kept seeing myself at this house, and it just so happened it worked out better for my budget.

I looked at a few traditional apartments. The thing was, they were small studios the size of the room I have now, but there was also a kitchen involved. I'm too old to be living in a space like that. The apartments that I could afford and that had somewhat decent square footage were just not in the neighborhoods I wanted to live in. When I added up the fact that I wouldn't have to pay for Wi-Fi or things like toilet paper, paper towels, and soap, choosing Common gave me a little cushion.