I think that lots of people would like to live in multiple places around the world. I know I would. That's why when people get rich and have the means, they often start to buy second homes. To that end, here's an interesting concept out of Japan called Not a Hotel.

Their model is fairly simply. What they do is build incredible design-forward vacation homes across Japan and then sell fractional shares, while at the same time offering full concierge and management services.

The typical fraction is for 30 days (1/12th), but if you'd like, you can buy up to the entire year. Ownership gives you access to the property for the amount of days you've purchased, or you can trade your days and stay at other homes within the Not a Hotel network.

On the nights you don't use, the company operates the home like a hotel and the owner gets the benefit of reduced management fees.

Most of their homes are already completely sold out. But 1/12th of this home in Kitakaruizawa is available for US$490,000. And on the other end of the spectrum, 1/36th of this Bjarke Ingels-designed home is available for US$2,460,000.

Here's a video of the home:

Fractional ownership is not a new model, but it is still relatively niche. I also think that the way Not a Hotel is going about it -- with their focus on over-the-top design and architecture -- is pretty unique.

Leisure travel, according to Resonance, is growing:

In fact, spending on leisure travel and recreation has outpaced the overall growth in consumer spending over the last decade, and inflation-adjusted spending on leisure activities as a share of overall consumer spending grew from 9.5% in 2013 to nearly 13% by 2022. This means that the travel and tourism industry is getting a growing share of a growing pie, which bodes well for the long-term future of those hotels and destinations that cater primarily to leisure travelers.

And so are blended trips (trips that combine business and leisure). Though the way people are going about it has evolved:

What used to involve adding a day or two on the weekend to a weekday business trip has shifted to the mixing of business and pleasure throughout the week. With a greater percentage of the workforce in the U.S, Canada and the U.K. only going into the office 2-3 days per week, workers from these countries are free to blend their travel for up to a week. And with as much as a quarter of professionals in the U.S. now working remotely, a whole new class of nomadic travelers has emerged who are able to travel anywhere, anytime—as long as their accommodations have adequate high-speed internet and appropriate workspaces.

At the same time, cities are really clamping down on short-term rentals, which is a common way people do blended trips. Resonance believes this will create new opportunities:

But while increased regulation and enforcement of the sector will wipe out the businesses of many “professional” hosts and investors, it’s also creating new opportunities for cities and developers to create new neighborhood-oriented hotels that satiate travelers’ desire for local experiences while also being additive to the quality of life of local residents.

It might be the case that these two things are inversely correlated. More people are traveling for fun and for work, and so now cities are trying to manage that demand; more travel leads to more regulation. Whatever the case, I do agree that this is an important consumption trend.

My working theory is this: if money wasn't an object, a lot of people would love to have homes all around the world and live in multiple places. I certainly would. And the list of places is already in my phone. But since this isn't practical for most, we have Airbnbs, neighborhood-oriented hotels, Soho House global memberships, and the ability to buy fractions of second homes.

These solutions all respond, at least partially, to our desires for new experiences and for a deeper attachment to places. But now that tech is expanding the reach of cities, these desires are becoming further untethered. And so my view is that there's going to be a lot of opportunity in the world of "making people feel like they're global citizens."

I don't know for exactly how long, but for a very long time people have been trying to solve this real estate problem: "I have a desire to own a home, or multiple homes, around the world. However, I don't know how often I'd actually use it/them, and this desire is both expensive and a pain in the ass."

And so unless you have a lot of money and can make the pain in the ass part go away, there seems to exist an ongoing need to make fulfilling this desire both cheaper and easier. Perhaps the most common ways are through a timeshare property or through some kind of fractional ownership structure, where you own a share of a property.

Some companies are even "tokenizing" this second structure on blockchains. I have read about one company that is buying vacation homes and then issuing 365 corresponding tokens. Each token represents 1 day of occupancy (and actual title ownership apparently). In theory this sounds kind of neat, but you're also buying a second home with potentially 364 other strangers.

So here's another approach that I just learned about. The UK-based company, August, has devised a model that works like this:

• August starts with "homeowner curation." Meaning, they start by vetting homeowners to make sure that they're not weird or something.

• Once they have a suitable collection of homeowners, August sets up a new real estate entity that all of the homeowners must then fund equally.

• This entity, by way of August, goes out and buys 5 properties, and each homeowner receives an equal share of the ownership. (Typically, they target 16-21 groups per entity.)

• August renovates the 5 properties, gets them ready for occupancy, and then manages them on ongoing basis. This includes bookings.

• Finally, each homeowner gets an average of 8-10 weeks per year across all of their homes.

In terms of the homes themselves, their pied-à-terre collection includes homes in Paris, Rome, Cannes, Barcelona, and London. They are typically between 70-100 square meters with 2 bedrooms and 1-2 bathrooms. And the average price/value is supposedly around €1,250,000 (post-renovation?), with the entry price of a share starting at €340,000.

I'm not sure if this share figure is based on 21 homeowners, but if it is, then that's €7,140,000 of equity being raised in order to buy somewhere around €6,250,000 of real estate. Is the spread their margin for setting this all up? There's also an annual fee per owner (€8,600), which presumably covers operating costs and the ongoing management of the properties.

A model like this naturally provokes a lot of questions. What happens if somebody wants to sell? Does the next buyer need to be similarly vetted for overall weirdness? And how liquid is 1/21st of a 5-property apartment portfolio? I don't know these answers, but intuitively these shares have got to be less liquid than a 100% sale.

However, as a solution to the problem of "I have a desire to own homes across Europe but I'm not quite rich enough to make it truly carefree", this seems like a pretty clever solution.