townhomes and condo. About five years ago, however, he and Savan came to the realization that there was “a much bigger need” in the market, and he changed his focus to address it. “There are a lot of people that can’t afford to own, but there are not a lot of options available to them – or at least not a lot of good options,” Sarit says. “The discrepancy in the market was huge. If you didn’t own a condo or rent a condo, you had to rent in an old apartment building from the 1950s. We thought that renters deserved better. We thought that there was an opportunity to create some more housing, to create some more rental product, and to build some stuff that was a lot nicer than what was currently available.” “We weren’t getting the fulfillment we wanted building luxury product for people with really large budgets,” he adds. “We thought that there might be a deeper fulfillment in building rental properties and providing quality housing for people who can’t afford to own.” It turned out their thinking was right. Over the past five years, Tibro Properties has developed a series of purpose-built rental buildings in line with Sarit and Savan’s revised vision, and they indeed find themselves more fulfilled. These days, Tibro Properties mainly looks at projects with at least 50 units. They have done some smaller buildings in the past as they were ramping up and testing the waters, but they have found that their “sweet spot” is between 75 and 100 units. Geographically, they are now mainly working in Hamilton and the surrounding areas – that’s a good market, FEBRUARY 2023
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