Since 1983, Greystar has grown into the largest rental property manager in the U.S. with hundreds of thousands of units in the U.S. and around 700,000 units internationally.
Greystar specializes in:
- Multifamily rentals
- On-campus student housing
- Off-campus student housing
Despite management being the pillar of Greystar's business model, the company has increasingly sought development and ownership control over apartment units, expanding its portfolio in recent years.
Evicter
Despite a portfolio worth $37.2 billion, Greystar continues to be a leader in evictions. During the Covid-19 pandemic, Greystar evicted at least 289 U.S. tenants despite local, state, and federal moratoriums on evictions.
Greystar's rush to evict tenants is not a new development with the pandemic but part of corporate practice. In 2019, documents showed evidence of Greystar evicting tenants for taking too many cookies.
And in 2016, the company made way for luxury developments by evicting 670 low and middle-income tenants in rent-controlled apartments in San Jose, leaving hundreds of children and families stranded.
Poor treatment of tenants
Beyond evictions, Greystar has a rocky relationship with its tenants and has been the target of several lawsuits challenging the treatment of tenant applicants and resident tenants.
In 2020, Greystar tenants in Southern California sued the company for violating tenant privacy and state law by conducting overly intrusive investigations into tenant applicants. The lawsuit argued that, despite "being on notice that its conduct was unlawful, defendant Greystar California committed the above violations anyway,"
Greystar, as a member of the National Apartment Association, asked tenants to identify their immigration status as part of rental applications. The Colorado Supreme Court found this practice had a "chilling effect" on immigrant tenants' ability to find and successfully apply to rental properties.
In 2019, Greystar was tied to accusations of age discrimination by targeting Facebook advertisements and housing postings exclusively to certain age groups of renters in an apparent attempt to exclude older renters.
Growth strategy
Greystar is expanding its reach in the multifamily rental market, both in development and management, and continues to snap up student housing properties and residential units internationally.
Since its 2018 acquisition of major student housing manager EdR, Greystar has grown its student housing portfolio, currently holding about $11.1 billion in assets. Greystar is particularly bullish on Public-Private Partnerships (P3s) with colleges and universities, offering its services to cash-strapped college campuses to take over what it describes as recession-proof assets.
Greystar has accelerated its acquisitions in Europe, particularly in metro areas in the United Kingdom and France and around universities, seeking to take advantage of rising rents.
Bob Faith, CEO and Founder
- $900 million net worth
- Founded Greystar in 1993 as a multifamily rental management company
- Co-founder of Starwood Capital, a private equity firm that owns thousands of rental units and other assets
- Part of Donald Trump's economic revival group, "Reopen America" with other corporate landlords
- Former South Carolina Secretary of Commerce and prominent member of the South Carolina Republican Party
- Owns at least two Charleston-area multimillion-dollar waterfront homes
- Passionate marlin fisherman who owns several yachts at the Charleston yacht club