Thind Properties' head office is a hidden hive of activity.
The 2,000-square-foot unit on the ground floor of a low-rise, mixed-use building on Kingsway Avenue looks unremarkable from the outside with no signs to identify the company to passersby.
Yet the enterprise is one of B.C.'s fastest-growing development empires.
Owner Daljit Thind's private office is similarly unpretentious. No art decorates its walls, although two photos of his children sit in simple frames on his largely empty bookshelf.
Large framed magazine features on Thind Properties' evolution sit on the floor against a wall, waiting to be hung and providing the only clue that the man sitting behind the large desk has developed about $400 million worth of real estate, has another $300 million or so on the books and has global real estate ambitions.
The room's simple decor is fitting, however, given Thind's modest roots.
The immigrant from the city of Ludhiana, in India's Punjab region, came to Canada 21 years ago.
Like many of his countrymen, Thind was unable to continue working in Canada in the field in which he had worked in his native land.
Thind had spent years studying to become a pharmacist at Rohtak University and had experience working as a pharmacist in India, yet that counted for nothing in Canada.
Needing work and willing to do whatever was necessary to feed his wife, Harinder, and their future family, he ventured into the trades.
For two years, he did formwork, plumbing and other construction-sector jobs that enabled him to scrape together enough capital for down payments on a home in Burnaby and a vacant lot in Surrey.
He put his construction skills to work and built a house on the Surrey lot with a partner while also supervising others. The undertaking turned out to be a debacle that almost stopped his development career cold.
Thind lost about $15,000, in part, he said, because he didn't know what he was doing.
Instead of hiring an experienced general contractor, Thind and his partner oversaw most of the work.
"That's one lesson," Thind said. "Subcontract work to experts."
Friends such as Gordon Houston, who is senior vice-president at WBI Home Warranty, commend Thind's aptitude for learning lessons – something of paramount importance given that he has taken no formal business training.
"As each project goes by, he becomes that much better with what he's doing because of what he learned from previous projects," Houston said.
"He can recognize when he might be a few steps ahead of himself, and he pulls back and gets assistance."
Thind moved on to redevelop his Burnaby home on 10th Avenue, where he and Harinder had been living for about seven months, in 1997.
This time he made about $90,000 profit – money that would come in handy given that he and his wife were now parents of twins.
The experience also hooked Thind on real estate development.
Between 1997 and 2002, he built about 100 single-family homes and duplexes.
"Banks have been good," he said. "Whatever you promise them, you have to deliver. Then, they approve your next project where you again have to perform."
He rolled profit into the business and began to build multi-family projects. That enabled him to boost production to about 300 homes between 2002 and 2012.
"Sometimes it's challenging to focus on quality and have multiple projects, but he's been very successful so far," said Puneet Agrawal, who is assistant vice-president at Canadian Western Bank and has provided Thind with countless loans.
Among the other lessons Thind has learned, and puts into practice, is to always be on time and on budget. Another lesson is to always pre-sell at least 60% to 70% of the project.
"Even if the bank says it needs 30% to 40% pre-sales, I would want more," he said.
His $70 million Skyway Tower project has met his pre-sales threshold. Marketers have already sold about 91 of the project's 130 units.
Thind expects that 12-storey tower and a connecting four-storey low-rise on the legendary former Wally's Burgers site in the 2700-block of Kingsway Avenue to be complete by next September.
It's one of several projects in the works.
His 80-unit Metro One is 85% sold out and just finished construction. The project's 100-unit sister tower, Metro Two, is about 70% sold out, under construction and set to be completed by next summer. Together, those towers have 14,000 square feet of commercial space.
Pre-sales launched in October for Thind's next project: a 53-unit condominium low-rise that he calls View 388 because it's at 388 Kootenay Street at the corner of East Hastings Street.
Then there are two rezonings.
The biggest is a 900-home, four-tower project near Brentwood Town Centre. The other rezoning is the 105-unit project at the corner of Kingsway Avenue and Gilley Street.
"There's more certainty in the [civic zoning] process in Vancouver and Burnaby," he said. "It's also easier to work where I live, in Vancouver. In Surrey, I don't know the market and the demand."
Despite that preference for building where he lives, Thind makes an exception when it comes to his homeland.
He takes the only book off his bookshelf and flips through the pages of 50 Beautiful Houses of India. He then shows some of his favourite designs to his guest.
The idea of being a partner in residential projects in India came from contacts who are based in Bombay and whom Thind met during networking sessions at the recent Times of India Film Awards.
Thind's company was the presenting sponsor of that spectacle, which took place in Vancouver in April and was broadcast to an estimated 400 million people.
The awards gala helped put Vancouver on the map in the minds of many Indians, Thind said.
"People in Bombay don't know much about where Vancouver is," he said. "It's not like in the Punjab."
