Our Cowork Co-Live project URBIN was recently featured in The Real Deal article titled “Developers are banking on co-living, but will it catch on?”
From the article:
Urbin’ infill
Though it’s more common in European markets, co-living is still a fairly new asset class in the U.S., so Terra said it is testing the market by leasing only 10 to 15 percent of the units to Common. Cities also have different caps on how many unrelated families can live in one housing unit, or do not allow co-living at all.
“It’s a test, but it’s also what I think works,” Martin said. “Traditional apartments have a certain cap rate. For co-living, there has not been that much trading. We don’t really understand how the capital markets are going to treat it.”
Martin is also an investor in Urbin, a co-living, co-working and wellness real estate platform led by developer Rishi Kapoor, the CEO of Miami-based Location Ventures. The company is moving forward with a co-living project at 1234 to 1260 Washington Avenue in Miami Beach after the City Commission there passed legislation allowing co-living in November 2019.
Urbin has raised $85 million in funding from the Murphy family of Coastal Construction, former NFL player Jonathan Vilma, Rudy Touzet of Banyan Street Capital and others. At least three locations are in the pipeline for South Florida, and Kapoor said he hopes to open 100 locations in the coming decade.
Mitash Kripalani, director of investment services at Colliers International South Florida, is listing the 61-bedroom building at 800 South Dixie Highway for sale. Location Ventures took it over two and a half years ago, renovated it and put an ad up on Craigslist to rent out the bedrooms, geared toward attracting students from the University of Miami. Kapoor said he used the building as a model for Urbin.
Co-living projects are in some cases getting “higher rents than Class A product in Brickell” because developers are able to rent a bedroom out for $1,300 a piece, according to Kripalani.
“Some people say it’s a fad,” Kripalani said. “But I think as rents grow, if you’re a young millennial and you want to live downtown for [$1,300] a month, your best option is co-living.”
Read More From The Real Deal Article HERE
