Yarrow is a real estate firm that prides itself on doing things differently. While most real estate firms exist simply to buy a rental, commercial, or residential property for profit, Yarrow is doing it for "community enhancement."
The firm began in 2021, when their first property on Whittaker Road was purchased. The co-founder and head of operations, Dylan Cinti, said he came up with the idea to purchase one of these old properties out of the blue while on a run with his brother, co-founder and principal of Yarrow, Jake Cinti.
“We would run through Ann Arbor, you know, Ypsi area, and we would just be looking at these incredible historic homes, and thought, wow, it would be, like, what's the story behind that house?” Cinti said.
While that was the initial idea leading to the founding of Yarrow, it was also the untapped market for “attainable elegance” as Cinti puts it.
“I realized, oh, maybe there's a business here, like maybe we could be in a position where we would be lucky enough to, you know, own and improve upon these kinds of houses," Cinti said.
The brothers started researching and understanding the housing market better, and using Dylan Cinti's ten years of marketing experience to help build their company. They found the quality of tenant experience to be very dependent on the property owner.
There was also an opportunity in Ypsilanti since some historic houses were in much better condition than others. The market conditions at that time were also less than that of the mean home price in Ann Arbor now, which is now at $600,000.
Cinti also said what makes Ypsilanti such a special place is that it feels like a place where everybody knows everybody else. This led to the young entrepreneur clarifying what Yarrow’s intentions were.
“Our only interest and focus is Ypsilanti," Cinti said. “My focus and my only interest is investing in a single community and contributing to and enriching that community.”
He says opportunistic buyers from places like California are buying properties in Ypsilanti, Michigan, because it's a much more affordable market, and it's easier for property owners to make a return as an investor.
“The color palette is informed by the colors that you see when you go to Depot Town and some of those historic buildings,” Cinti said when asked about how the company got its name.
Yarrow is a wildflower native to Michigan, which is sometimes used by birds to build nesting. It is a beautiful and elegant flower that represents this real estate firm’s goals of attainable elegance and preserved historical spaces for an enhanced community.
