Tripalink, a real estate development and property management company founded in 2016, has been taking LA by storm. They’ve recently started operating four new apartment complexes: The Harper, The Archer, and The Hana from Jamison Properties, LP, one of the largest developers in LA; The Malcolm from Sinanian Development Inc; and The Barrington from Wiseman Residential. All five apartment complexes combined have a total of 491 units. These properties are spread throughout Koreatown, Sawtelle, and Hollywood.
Most of the properties include high-end amenities such as:
- a pool
- entertainment areas
- private study rooms
- rooftops with immaculate views of the LA skyline
These five new properties, plus the new co-living ones in Seattle and Philadelphia, bring Tripalink to a total of 1,200 new bed spaces in Q1. About 20% of them are co-living spaces. By the end of this year, Tripalink foresees an increase of over 5,000 beds nationally.
Tripalink diversifies its portfolio by operating more traditional apartments, transiting to a residential brand favored by younger generations from a pure co-living company. Their main focus of expansion is in the traditional apartment market space in addition to co-living apartments; this transition to include traditional apartments in their management portfolio has helped them grow exponentially in 2021 despite the pandemic. “We’ve seen many of the existing traditional apartments have a potential to be partially converted into co-living units,” said Donghao Li, the CEO of the company. “We started operating traditional apartments for two reasons. First, traditional apartments are still in demand for some of our targeted tenants. Second, mixing traditional and co-living units in an apartment building is becoming a trend.”
Tripalink has grown rapidly since its founding and is expanding quickly all over the country. They have about 4,200-bed spaces in LA, Irvine, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Seattle, Austin, and Tucson. In LA specifically, they’ve expanded into West LA, South LA, and most recently Koreatown and Sawtelle. Tripalink found that the Koreatown and Sawtelle markets have a lot of potential for young professionals in location and affordability.
Tripalink stands out amongst its competitors because of its robust business model, high efficiency, dedication to excellent service, and product-market fit. Tripalink does management and development and can gain a positive return on investment by improving unit economics and operation efficiency. They know that living in major cities can be very expensive, so developing co-living properties with a younger demographic in mind can streamline the pricing and include utilities/other benefits in the rent price. As a result, Tripalink residents can comfortably afford their own private bedroom and bathroom without breaking the bank. This is a huge key to success in the co-living industry.
Tripalink’s immense and rapid growth has led them to focus more on their future expansion into not only more of Los Angeles but the East Coast and beyond. With their goal of adding 5,000 additional beds this year, they aim to have nearly 10,000 total bed spaces nationally by the end of this year.
Tripalink has completed several ground-up development projects as well as collaborations with local developers. In addition, they’re always looking for new real estate developers with whom to collaborate.
