Tri-West Development was founded in 2014 by Blake Overend, Bryce Overend and Omer Ivanir to construct luxury single-family homes. To date, it has built more than 150 homes.
Bryce Overend said that in 2014, he was seeing increased demand for newly constructed single-family homes for sale.
“There was a ton of demand and a real lack of supply,” he said.
Ivanir said creating these homes in Los Angeles, specifically, made a lot of sense.
“L.A. is the greatest market for this business model in the U.S. It’s a large city that can support high per-foot prices,” Ivanir said.
He added that Los Angeles doesn’t have as much new development as some other areas, which makes it an attractive market to be in.
Overend said the South Bay, Santa Monica, Brentwood, Bel Air and Beverly Hills markets are among the company’s most active.
But the business has started to evolve.
The company recently began buying apartments in addition to building homes. And many of those acquisitions have been made beyond the company’s L.A. home base.
“It’s always been our goal to expand that portfolio both in Los Angeles, California, and move it out of state,” Overend said. “2020 was a catalyst to a conversation we’ve been having for many years.”
The company’s most recently announced acquisition was the 312-unit Monterra Apartments in Albuquerque, N.M., located at 4217 Louisiana Blvd. TriWest purchased the asset from Vukota Capital Management.
It is TriWest’s third acquisition in Albuquerque where it also acquired the 77-unit ABQ Elevate Apartments in June and the 118-unit Ambassador East Apartments in August.
The company is in escrow on another 317 units in the city. And while it does still hold some Southern California properties, it is also active in Texas, Georgia and Florida, and has even opened an office in the Southeast.
The company now has 1,156 multifamily units and 1,321 more in escrow across the Unites States.
Overend said it’s hard to scale up in L.A. because there are so many small apartment buildings here and because of more recent state and local policies.
“The fundamentals make more sense in our surrounding states than they do here, mainly because of public policy,” he said.
“It’s no secret that both Covid and the impact of the pandemic and the overall legislative environment in California has made it difficult for real estate investment,” Ivanir said. “Our portfolio in Los Angeles suffered more than (in other areas).”
Ivanir said the company has sold some of its local properties and used the proceeds to buy out of state.
Looking forward, Overend said the company will develop single-family properties in L.A. while purchasing multifamily assets elsewhere. He expects that in the next 24 months, the company will grow to 6,000 units and have 8,000-10,000 units within the next 36 months.
“We expect to be one of the largest buyers of apartments in the country,” he said, adding that the company plans to invest in properties that provide a discount relative to replacement costs and that are located in high-growth markets with strong employment drivers.
