Raphael Hillis
Real Estate Developer and Investor in Miami, Florida
About
Raphael Hillis began “flipping” houses at age twenty. He was lucky to start his career the same year the Miami real estate market experienced meteoric growth due to the Covid-19 pandemic. That lead to successful exits of several renovated single family projects and duplexes. However, with prices so much higher than they had been a few years before, he was unsure if prices would stay where they were or fall back to pre-pandemic levels. Instead he began his commercial career by buying a retail condo and small building in downtown Miami. Going forward, he envisions building both luxury single family homes, and lower rent “co-living” multifamily properties. He intends to be in real estate development for the rest of his life.
Development Focus
Raphael Hillis specializes in development in Miami, Florida. Compounded experience from different projects has made him very familiar with the Miami Zoning Code’s nuances. This allows Raphael Hillis’s projects to avoid costly unforeseen expenses, and take advantage of tax or historic credits, air rights, and other little-known benefits. Miami has always been special, but he believes that since 2020 the city is cementing itself as a “real city” instead of a seasonal tourist destination. For ground-up development, it remains an excellent market with vast amount of capital flowing in, and shocking resilience despite of negative national macro-economic headwinds. There is nowhere Raphael Hillis would rather build luxury spec-homes. However, all the high net worth individuals and recent transplants have inflated rents to new levels. This leads to another opportunity: offering lower priced apartments for young professionals, service industry workers, and anyone who cannot afford the Miami condo’s large ticket price. Co-living apartments are a new addition to the Miami Code Raphael Hillis was excited to see, and allow for construction savings that can be passed on to renters.
Personal Biography
Raphael Hillis spent most of the first ten years of his life in Ecuador. His grandfather was a local developer who had built several high-rise condo buildings in the city, and a hotel . The hotel was the family business and every time Raphael Hillis visited the property as a child he already had the subconscious inkling that “if my grandpa can do it so can I.” He spent his middle-school years living in Germany, eventually moving to Miami for high school. Raphael Hillis’s mother is an architect and interior designer, and had a side business renovating houses, giving Raphael Hillis an early insight into the business in Miami. He studied at University of Chicago, where he made sure to take all real estate private equity classes offered at the Booth School of Business. Raphael Hillis speaks English, Spanish, and German.
Brokerage Relationship
Raphael Hillis spends the overwhelming majority of his time on real estate development and real estate investment. For some friends he still does some real estate brokerage, both residential and commercial. Raphael Hillis’s brokerage transactions in Florida are conducted through Urban Key Realty, where he is a licensed real estate sales associate.