Yariv Ben Sira: A Passive Investor Who Builds Toward Active Success

Whenever we hear the term “international city”, here in the United States, we automatically think of New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Miami and Boston. Whereas areas in Midwestern states, like Tennessee, Indiana, and Kansas are often overlooked, and may not even come to mind to someone looking to bring investment money to the United States.

Yariv Ben Sira, however, is an international investor who looks almost exclusively at Middle America. He began his career working for a real estate developer, but he eventually left to form his own company.  From that, he slowly evolved into a private investor – buying up properties, renovating them, and leasing them to interested renters.

Ben Sira kept recommending purchases, even as other investors told him it was too risky. Eventually, he and a group of Israeli investors found their way into multi-family properties in and around Indianapolis. It was successful, and by 2014, he sold all of his holdings in Indiana, and worked towards building in a different location in the southeast.

To date, wherever Ben Sira has invested, whether it is a tower in Memphis, or Garden style residential units in Kansas City – he has helped bring jobs to the areas and has been pivotal to the turnaround of neighborhoods, some of which had been suffering from social and economic distress.

Ben Sira devised a monumentally unique business plan for Hyde Capital and  changed the landscape of Middle America in the process.  While Ben Sira’s involvement in Hyde Capital relates to his investment, one cannot overlook the fact that he masterminded the concept of the company which is completely responsible for its success. Through years of renovating houses and churning out virtually new properties from what were once abandoned lots, Ben Sira, eventually took this knowledge and combined it with an innate business prowess gained through the year, and developed the Hyde Capital business plan.

Last February, taking a page directly from Ben Sira’s business plan, Hyde Capital purchased Residential Tower in downtown Memphis. Ben Sira’s business plan for this enterprise provided for the  design of this type of building in this specific location, indicated how to attract investors, and execute a revolutionary renovation program. Being that the complex is targeting medical students and young professionals working in the downtown area, he made sure recreational areas were considered, such as a coffee bar and a rooftop pool with a state of the art fitness center, clubhouse, and business center.

“Millennials are known for wanting buildings laden with amenities,” Ben Sira said, “they love the flexibility renting provides, and will pay to live with their urban comforts.” Perhaps this is why Mr. Ben Sira suggested  a pet-washing area in the lobby of the building; the more amenities that speak to wider groups of people, the better.

In August 2016, Hyde Capital acquired three more buildings in the Central Gardens district in Memphis. These were built in the 1940s and 1960s and Ben Sira sought to preserve the flavor of the architecture, which he believes have  given Midwestern cities their character over the past half century or so. Yet, he also wants to make their interiors modern spaces for young professionals to lead comfortable lives.

By preserving the feel of a neighborhood from the outside rather than building all-new designs, he believes he can maintain old world beauty and bridge new world demographics to tired places.  With this idea, he can revitalize a neighborhood, provide housing for new generations who can stimulate the area.  Business will find workforces, workers will want to live nearby in his spaces.  As long as there are amenities and services on the inside, millennials will come.

So why not New York, why not Chicago? As a native New Yorker who has lived in the Big Apple my whole life, I commend Yariv Ben Sira for taking interest in fascinating underappreciated cities that could really use the boost. If this recent election for president taught us anything, coastal Americans have a disconnect from middle America, and being that Ben Sira is not a native, he just saw opportunity and went where he saw possibilities, not popularity.Hyde Capital is the epitome of innovation in the real estate market and full credit for its success must go to Yariv Ben Sira for devising the platform on which Hyde Capital would operate. The innovation of middle American development in this capacity, to this level, had not been considered by almost any other development or construction enterprise, and in that is the bedrock of Hyde Capital’s success and thus the revenues realized by Hyde are directly attributable to Yariv Ben Sira’s business acumen and the foresight to expand development to new markets.

Many of my friends have moved to the Midwest since graduating college, and plenty of them have told me about the big changes that these parts of the country have been seeing over the last few years.

Yariv has been a part of this revival, and hopefully his work is nowhere close to being finished. Ben Sira is an innovator, who takes risks based on careful study, and does not just go for what was easy.  I would take investment advice from him, and I would certainly love to live in one of these buildings.