Greystar Real Estate Partners

Greystar Real Estate Partners is an international real estate developer and manager based in the United States. As of 2023, Greystar had over $76 billion in gross assets under management, and operated in 17 countries.

Per NMHC report, Greystar was the largest apartment manager in the United States, with over 798,272 units as of 2024. It is also the country's largest apartment owner, with 108,566 units.

Greystar has been sued several times by its tenants.

History

Founded in 1993 by chairman and CEO Bob Faith, and headquartered in Charleston, South Carolina, Greystar has over 22,000 employees and 66 offices representing 224 markets in the North America, South America, Europe, and the Asia-Pacific region.

The company began operating in the UK in 2013. In July 2017, Greystar announced it would acquire Monogram Residential Trust's 14,000-unit portfolio of 49 rental communities in ten states, for $3 billion.

In June 2018, Greystar announced that it would acquire EdR, a manager of college housing communities in the US, for $4.6 billion.

Greystar acquired the property management arm of Alliance Residential Co. in June 2020, and in October 2020, Greystar acquired 45% of Thackeray Partners. That December, Greystar partnered with Walker & Dunlop and Project Destined to create a paid internship program for students from diverse backgrounds in Durham, North Carolina. Greystar and Project Destined expanded their partnership to students at South Carolina State University in 2022.

In March 2021, Greystar, along with partners Ivanhoé Cambridge and Bouwinvest, announced a $1.1 billion joint venture to develop and acquire housing for students and young professionals in the greater Paris area and a joint venture in multifamily housing in Chile. Greystar acquired the rest of Thackeray Partners in May 2021 and partnered with the University of South Carolina to create a $210 million campus village. Greystar also announced a partnership with CPP Investment Board to pursue life sciences development with a $74 million office and lab in Somerville, Massachusetts, as well as a joint venture to develop and acquire single-family and multifamily rental communities. In November, the company announced an additional $600 million investment in more student housing development, with partnerships with the University of Maryland, College Park and the University of Texas at Austin. In December 2021, Greystar acquired Fizzy Living and began expanding its presence in the industrial sector.

Greystar secured roughly $883 million of investments in June 2021 to expand in cities across Europe. In 2023, Greystar's new buildings included a 21-story building in Chicago and a mixed-use complex in downtown Austin; it also acquired the London site of the 2012 Summer Olympics for conversion to rental units. Greystar also opened a modular construction factory in Knox, Pennsylvania. Greystar's modular apartment venture, Modern Living Solutions, broke ground on its first multifamily project, in Coraopolis, Pennsylvania, in August 2023. The company broke ground on Summerwell Sunterra, a build-to-rent community in the Houston area, in June 2023. As of September 2023, Greystar has acquired or developed 12 communities under its Summerwell brand focused on single-family rentals.

In February 2024, Greystar acquired Wood Partners, a developer and builder, adding 38,000 units to its management portfolio. In April 2024, the National Multifamily Housing Council, an industry trade group, announced that Greystar was the United States' largest apartment owner after adding over 10,000 units to its portfolio in 2023.

Greystar partners with Airbnb to allows its residents to host their homes as short-term rentals.

In August 2024, the company announced plans to expand into infrastructure development.

Tenant lawsuits

In 2019, the company was sued for violating consumer protection laws. In a Los Angeles County Superior Court filing, Greystar was charged with gathering extensive personal identifying information about its tenants without their knowledge or consent. At five Greystar-owned apartment buildings, the company collected information about its tenants' "character" and "general reputation." In 2021, the firm's business model was alleged to be adding to Ireland's housing crisis.

In June 2019, a crane collapsed on apartments owned by Greystar in Old East Dallas, causing serious injury to numerous tenants and the death of one woman. Greystar were subsequently found to have been negligent and were required to pay $860m damages to the 17 plaintiffs, including the parents of the deceased. The court in Dallas found that Greystar had violated safety regulations in several ways, including the presence of a Greystar sign on top of the crane which was a contributing factor to its collapse.

In 2022, a tenant at a Greystar property in Charlotte, North Carolina filed a lawsuit against the company, alleging that Greystar failed to perform necessary building maintenance. In October 2022, Greystar was a co-defendant in a lawsuit filed against the property management software company RealPage. The suit alleged that RealPage colluded with Greystar, among other property management companies, to fix rent prices at those companies' properties.

In January 2024, a tenant at a Greystar property in Lakewood, Colorado sued Greystar over alleged junk fees the company added to her monthly rent. That same month, Greystar charged a Loveland, Colorado family $4,140 in lease-breaking penalty fees following the death of the lease's primary signer.

References

{{portal, Companies

Companies based in Charleston, South Carolina
Financial services companies established in 1993
Real estate companies established in 1993
1993 establishments in South Carolina
Property management companies