I built https://choremate.co because we needed it ourselves and I couldn't, initially, find something similar. When I applied to YC I did more extensive research and found lots of past and current attempts.

My approach has novel insight but part of why I couldn't find competitors is because the market for coliving tools is weak.

I suspect (from this obviously limited anecdote) the problem with most ideas where competitors aren't apparent is that the market is weak. In such cases, the real competitive advantage is likely in finding a solution to the market weakness. Market might be weak because existing solutions aren't very good but in my case it's more complicated.

Past/current attempts/failures can give you a lot of valuable information about what doesn't work so learning about them gives you a smaller space to search for what will work.