Build What Others Won’t: How Unique Architecture Creates More Real Estate Value

Yves Ghiai (00:00)
The design has to be unique.

It’s not out of place, but it has to be unique, it has to be eye-catching. because if you build the same thing as a guy next door, people have choices. But if you build something unique, I know that by experience, whether it’s for rental or sales, people will flock to your building.

Freddie Steen (00:09)
Mm.

Hey everyone, welcome to the *Real Estate Pros Investor Fuel Podcast*. I’m your host, Freddie, and today, all today, I’m joined by someone I’ve been looking forward to chatting with. Yves Ghiai who’s been making serious moves in the architecture and development space. And not just that, but making turning land.

And turning development into real estate that has value. Yves, I’m glad to have you here, but I think our listeners are really going to take something away from how you’re approaching developing projects and maximizing space, even when it looks like there’s not the space there to do it. You’ve been able to do that in multiple markets, and also the way in which you’ve been able to build a team of developers around you. So first off,

For people who may not be familiar with your world, give us the short version. What’s your main focus these days? And what markets are you operating in?

Yves Ghiai (03:06)
Well, I’m an architect and a developer. My main focus right now in today’s market is to develop medical offices, most specifically in Las Vegas, because it’s a place I know, but this is something I may look to do elsewhere as well.

Land is scarce and zoning laws are tight. That’s where I come in. Because an architect knows the language of planners, knows how to maximise things, knows how to get around certain restrictions. Yes. And and a developer knows how to save money and build something that’s that makes sense and pencils out.

I combine both.

That that’s the in mostly the gist of what I do.

Freddie Steen (04:08)
Well, Yves, you’re very humble. And I have to back up and let our audience know. We are listening to architectural royalty. I do have to take space to honor someone who means a lot to you. We’ll get to the three A’s that are important in your life later, but for now, I want our audience to know that we have with us today someone whose father is an internationally known architect, and his name was Heydar Ghiaï.

And he is he was the architect that was born in Tehran in nineteen twenty-two, but your father used to design for the Shah. Can you tell us about that?

Yves Ghiai (05:39)
Well, my father was the official architect of the Imperial Court of the Shah of Iran. So he designed huge projects. He he had one of the largest firms in the Middle East, architectural firms. So he designed the Hilton Hotel, Senate House, movie theaters, buildings, government buildings, rail stations, on and on.

Freddie Steen (06:04)
Is that where you got the bug for architecture?

Yves Ghiai (06:06)
It is, because when I was a child I was just after school I was I just hung around the the architectural firm and looked at books and talked to his employees. That’s how I did, yeah.

Freddie Steen (06:18)
That is so cool. And you leverage that by ultimately not just watching what was be what was being done, but actually catching that bug and studying what’s being done. What we found is in a lot of our pods and a lot of our real estate pros that are listening right now are legacies just like you. They may not be architects or land developers, but they may be in different areas of real estate. And I’m glad to say.

That it is an honor to be talking to a legacy. Now every operator I know has a moment where things got real. Maybe a deal that went sideways or a time that they had to pivot fast. Do you mind sharing one of those moments for you?

Yves Ghiai (06:50)
Thank you.

Sure. It was nineteen ninety-one. I just finished a spec home, a big house, a mansion, in Hillsborough, California. Hillsboro is one of the richest areas near San Francisco. And the house was completed and the ninety-one recession hit.

Yes. real estate went went down all of a sudden. We used to have Japanese buyers, they vanished. We had Chinese buyers, they vanished. And my choice was to either keep it, which I I could have made several millions by keeping it just an extra five, six years, or let it go at at cost. Unfortunately, I had a partner.

Who could not follow me in keeping the house, and so we let it go. That was one of the sour points for as my career as a developer. As an architect, the sad point was that I did a huge project I designed in Costa Rica for a friend who’s a developer, and

As it started construction, the government of Costa Rica decided to nationalize that whole area. It was it was giant. It was two main beaches, plus parks and stuff, to nationalize it and just our project had to stop. So that’s my sour point as an architect.

Freddie Steen (08:57)
That’s very that’s very helpful, and I I love that. Those type of stories and that type of insight are the type of insights that catch my attention. But what caught my attention about you further was the way you’ve been able to design, maximizing space, and being on the front end when it comes down to planning to make sure that your projects, as you say,

Pencil out. That’s not easy, especially in this climate. Yves, what’s been the key to keeping that machine running smoothly?

Yves Ghiai (09:36)
Well obviously there are certain facts that you cannot change. You cannot change interest rate. It’s beyond my control. You cannot change cost of construction or cost of labor or the market conditions. But what you can change as an architect developer which I am, what you can change is use maximum amount of creativity to design

Freddie Steen (10:03)

Yves Ghiai (10:41)
Structures that maximize space, that minimise, for instance, the amount of corridor and wasted space, so it becomes cheaper to build. And yet, with creativity again, to make it seem that it’s very large, by opening bay windows, by having light into the place, by increasing a little bit the ceiling height, and

Freddie Steen (11:03)
Mm.

Yves Ghiai (11:07)
Also to make the the facades, the the appearance of the building more attractive so that you will attract more buyers than the guy next door who has just a generic building. And that’s that takes a lot of thinking. Now massaging the numbers is another way to do it, of course.

You can prevent having a sprinkler system if you if you don’t go three stories high for instance in residential so you have you know there are many many regulations like this that you can prevent by using a different design the other issue of course is parking but parking also you can massage it with planning departments

For instance, tandem parking is acceptable to them. Whereas normally a developer will say, Well, I don’t have enough space for parking. They’ll put one space next to the other. Well, what about tandem? What about parking those elevators, you know, where you you can put two cars? So mm creativity, it’s it’s what what does it. And and what’s very important, as I mentioned, is to design something that’s

A little bit over designed for the neighborhood.

Freddie Steen (12:36)
Yves, I want to talk about that because we talked earlier, and I’m sorry, I have to I have to let our audience in on some of our private conversations. What the audience needs to know is that Yves was trained at the famous Lycée Janson-de-Sailly, and he followed that up. That was in Paris in high school, and then he comes to Pratt, that famous architecture school in New York. By doing that, what I want you to tell our audience, Yves.

is how you were able to design a property, a development in California that at first seemed out of place, but twenty years later is actually a value add to the pocket. Can you touch on that please?

Yves Ghiai (13:23)
Yes, and that’s a very important point also from a business point of view and financially. my philosophy was always to overbuild for the neighborhood.

So that you have the best structure in the neighborhood, whether it’s condos, office building or house.

Now one might say yes, but if you do that to refi it or to obtain financing or to sell it, you will not get the comparables. Well that’s not true. You get the comparables because a good appraisal would will go a little bit over to surrounding neighborhoods to find the best comparables for you. So I I close that parenthesis. secondly

The design has to be unique.

It’s not out of place, but it has to be unique, it has to be eye-catching. because if you build the same thing as a guy next door, people have choices. But if you build something unique, I know that by experience, whether it’s for rental or sales, people will flock to your building.

Freddie Steen (14:26)
Mm.

Yves Ghiai (15:22)
Okay.

And lastly, there’s the things that I’ve always done is I try to build in steel and concrete the structure, not wood. I tried not to use wood, because steel and concrete will last much longer. I use aluminum cladding so you can just wash it. minimum maintenance. So in the long run, really it costs you less. Because

Wood deteriorates.

Steel and concrete don’t. So yes, it costs a little bit more, a little bit, not too much.

But in the span of ten, fifteen, twenty years, the the longer it goes, the more value you add to it. Not not counting even that the fact that the neighborhood gets better, and the neighborhood will catch up to your building. So it’s better to be the first in that.

Freddie Steen (16:31)
Yves, that’s big. especially when you’ve already got this experience from the front end on the architecture side, but then on the development end, what you’re speaking to touched on something else. And I just want to lift it up for our real estate pros that are listening. What’s been your experience on marrying your philosophy of building unique with the move toward

Corporations, you’ve done very large projects. The move toward corporations toward environment, sustainability, and governance. How did your insistence on working in steel and concrete versus wood marry to larger projects, multimillion-dollar projects that you’ve worked on that are concerned about sustainability? Could you tell us more about that?

Yves Ghiai (17:25)
Yes, first of all there’s a misconception. The least sustainable construction material is wood, because you have to destroy forests. And you can tell me yes, but it will grow back. No, you do destroy forest.

Steel and concrete stay there forever, almost.

[Inaudible]

It’s basically composed of sand and gravel. So we have it. And if you demolish it, you can reuse it.

That’s not even talking about the newer type of concrete that are that that have no carbon in them. The new technologies. Well, there are new concrete companies in France I know of of one, but there are here too, I think. They use decarbonated concrete. I used myself a company that used the you know the f all the fumes and the sh

Freddie Steen (18:15)
Yeah. Tell me about that.

Yves Ghiai (18:34)
The stuff that comes out of factories, I don’t know how it’s called exactly, they use that and they they make concrete out of that. Wow. So that’s extremely sustainable.

Freddie Steen (18:49)
That is extremely sustainable and it makes companies want to do more projects with your company, correct?

Yves Ghiai (18:56)
Yes. and then

The other thing is that

There’s a way to build buildings without relying too much on things like air conditioning and heating.

Freddie Steen (19:16)
Talk about that. You mentioned a project that was overseas that actually used natural cooling to cool the whole building. But talk

Yves Ghiai (19:21)
Yes. Well that’s the

Project, you know, in in ancient Persia they discovered structure, they they they create a structure called badgir. And these are square tubes go up and s and they get the the warm air out of the ground and make it escape.

Through those openings on top of that tower to cool the so it cools the space in the summer. In the winter it does the opposite. But that’s one that’s one example. You know, you can the exposure of north and south, bringing in the sun in the south, having more s more glass and bay windows in the south, so it brings the sun in the morning, protecting more the north facade.

These are simple design ways that we forgot. You know, we build glass boxes just like that. We forgot how to use that sensitivity to to be sustainable and not to have to use so much electricity.

Freddie Steen (20:41)
Wow. Yves, so that brilliance that you have in knowing architecture and marrying that to sustainability and the way in which you’ve made your stake in understanding concrete, understanding steel, the next move can either compound things or create chaos depending on how you play it. Now, I know a lot of people listening are either earlier in their journey or looking to level up like you.

And I think they benefit from hearing this. Yves, when it comes to building relationships and growing your network with developers, what’s made the biggest difference for you?

Yves Ghiai (21:22)
Well, you know, I I trained as an architect, as I as I told you, as you know. When I came out of architectural school, I worked a little bit in an office. I saw it wasn’t for me. My dad gave me the idea. He he had a friend, a very well known architect, another well known architect here in the United States, called John Portman, who was a big architect developer. He designed all those Hyatt hotels with the atriums and stuff.

But he developed it too. He was the developer and the architect. So I always we I took him as an example. So I immediately early in my career became a developer, which means I was my own client. And so I didn’t develop any network of clients.

But it so happens that other developers I knew, because I spoke their language, you know, I I understood when they said, you know, we need to make it cheaper or this or that. I I understood—I knew how to talk to them. I wouldn’t get upset at them like architects would. So I developed a bunch of clients, developers.

Freddie Steen (22:34)
Yes.

Yves Ghiai (22:40)
Even the private clients that I had, even for luxury homes after that.

There are people who who hired me because of my development knowledge.

Freddie Steen (22:54)
Hmm.

Yves Ghiai (22:55)
Because you know they they didn’t know how to even buy a piece of land, check the zoning, talk to planners.

Talk to utility companies, you know, on and on. So they hired me because I had that knowledge, as opposed to hiring just an architect to design some plans.

So in a way that that gave me

An advantage of knowing developers. What I what I didn’t of course the other side of the coin is I didn’t develop a private clientele like many architects have, because I only dealt with developers.

Freddie Steen (23:46)
Yeah, Yves, relationships, you can’t fake that. relationships are everything in this space. all right, before we wrap, if someone wanted to reach out, connect with you, maybe collaborate, or learn more about what you’re doing, what’s the best way for them to reach you?

Yves Ghiai (24:07)
Well two ways. They can call me or text me at four one five seven seven five two one one three. Again four one five seven seven five two one one three. or they can email me. my my email is Yves Ghiai, so first and last name, so it’s Y-V-E-S-G-H-I-A-I at gmail.com. [email protected]. They can also check my website, ghiai.com and there the contacts are there as well.

Freddie Steen (24:58)
Perfect. Well, listen, Yves, I appreciate your time, your story, your perspective. We’ve talked everything pre-pod from the Basílica de la Sagrada Família to Frank Lloyd Wright and his cantilever design. You are expert at it all. And what you’ve been able to do with the design, maximizing space and your knowledge of how to do that and navigate governance.

We need more people in this space who are doing it the right way. Thanks again for being here.

Yves Ghiai (25:30)
Thank you very much. Thank you for your time as well.

Freddie Steen (25:34)
Gratitude. And listen, for those of you tuning in, if you got value from this, make sure you’re subscribed. We’ve got more conversations coming with operators just like Yves Ghiai, who are out there building real businesses just like you. Yves, gratitude. Thank you so much for a dynamic podcast.

Yves Ghiai (26:01)
Thank you, I thank you.

Freddie Steen (26:03)
And we’ll see you on the next episode. Thank you, Yves.

Yves Ghiai (26:08)
Thank you very much.