Creative Real Estate Innovator (Investor)

One thing I’ve learned about real estate: the rules are only half the game — the rest is imagination. In Finland we don’t grow our cities upward with glass skyscrapers like Manhattan, but that doesn’t mean vertical thinking is off the table. It just means you need to be more inventive.

Take the idea of adding floors. In Helsinki, Tampere, even smaller cities, there are plenty of 3–4-story 1960s blocks that were never designed with air-rights sales in mind — but that doesn’t mean a new flooraddition can’t become the cherry on top. Prefab light-construction modules, lifted by crane, could turn dead roof area into new apartments with top-floor views and premium rent without touching the original slab. The developer gets new units, the housing company gets a facelift or renovations financed, and the city gets new homes without new land.

Or maybe instead of going up, you go into the gap. Many older plots have underused parking areas, forgotten sheds, or simply a weird chunk of nothing at the back of the lot. Demolish the irrelevant, and suddenly a courtyard infill building appears — a townhouse row tucked behind, or a micro-apartment block standing where bicycles used to rust. You’re not reinventing the city — you’re finishing it.

And if you take the idea to smaller scale ownership — for example single-family rental houses — an ADU (Accessory Dwelling Unit) is the same logic in miniature. It can be a heated backyard studio, a tiny home, a garage conversion, or even a two-story annex. The main house pays the mortgage; the ADU funds your coffee habit — or your next down payment. In North America this is a mainstream wealth play. In Finland it’s still a loophole of opportunity for those who bother to look beyond the obvious.

Creative real estate investing is not about gimmicks — it’s about recognizing that the biggest “hidden yield” is in the space that everyone else thinks is fixed. Roofs that could be homes, courtyards that could be buildings, garages that could be long-term rentals. We talk a lot about ROI and cap rates. But sometimes the real win comes before the spreadsheet — when you notice that the city is full of places waiting for a second life.

Unconventional Revenue Layers Inside the Same Building

Creativity doesn’t always mean new construction — sometimes it means new use. A basement that is currently just a storage corridor can become rentable hobby rooms, shared work pods, a bike-repair hub, or even sound-isolated music studios. Laundry rooms can be replaced by in-unit machines and the freed space leased to a private operator as a self-service gym or sauna complex. Attics can turn into rooftop coworking lounges or short-stay guest suites for the building’s own residents — monetizing otherwise idle cubic meters.

The asset already exists — you just change its job description.

Split What Others Bundle, Bundle What Others Split

A common mental trap is to buy things “as packaged.” But creativity often comes from unbundling and rebundling differently.

• Buy a large unit, split legally and physically into two smaller rentals
• Buy several tiny units and rebundle them as a furnished corporate package
• Buy storage rooms and turn them into micro-offices or dark kitchens for delivery restaurants
• Buy commercial space that the board undervalues, repurpose it into residential or flexible service use

Margins hide in the seams of regulation and habit.

 

Sometimes the best deals aren’t found. They are made — by those who bother to imagine what others ignore.