Joshua Benaim is Founder and CEO of Aria, an award-winning real estate company focused on next generation multifamily, value investment and special situations investing, and creative real estate development. Benaim founded Aria in 2009 with partners David Arditi and Timothy Gordon to generate outsized risk-adjusted returns by marrying traditional hands-on real estate to classic value investment principles. With Benaim at the helm, Aria’s development portfolio has grown to more than 4,000 units and $1.5 billion of institutional-grade multifamily assets across the United States, including value add, special situations and opportunistic investments. Aria specializes in transforming illiquid and underutilized real estate in great locations into cash flowing multifamily.
Prior to founding Aria, Benaim was a Managing Principal at Square Mile Capital Management LLC. He learned real estate development and old world business values with Manocherian Brothers, his family organization with a seventy-year track record as a multifamily owner/operator in New York City.
Benaim has a passion for thought leadership in our industry serving as Co-Chair of the HBS Real Estate Alumni Association during the initial development of that organization, and as an advisor to Professor Arthur Segel in the creation of HBS’s first online real estate course. Benaim is the author of Real Estate: A Love Story, which has been described as “a must-read for aspiring entrepreneurs, investors, and real estate lovers.” He’s also an operatic baritone who has appeared with the Metropolitan Opera. Benaim received his A.B. in Social Studies from Harvard University and his MBA from Harvard Business School. He lives in New York City with his wife and three children.