MULTIFAMILY INFLUENCER: Greystar Real Estate Partners
When Bob Faith founded Greystar Real Estate Partners in 1993, his intention was to create a fully integrated institutional-quality services firm for the rental housing business.
Bob Faith, Chairman and CEO, Greystar Real Estate Partners .
In 1993, two years after founding Starwood Capital Partners with Barry Sternlicht, Bob Faith founded Greystar Real Estate Partners. His intention was to create a fully integrated institutional-quality services firm for the rental housing business. Recognizing that real estate is ultimately cyclical, his vision was to create an evergreen business model that combines investment management and development with a property management services platform to provide a stable presence throughout the business cycle. His vision and business savvy have allowed him to construct a recession-resistant business by diversifying Greystar into a management, development and investment juggernaut.
Faith, who serves as chairman and CEO of the Charleston, SC-based firm, is a trailblazer who has helped the rental housing industry evolve in highly progressive ways, raised the bar for the rental housing sector and compelled industry peers to sharpen their collective focus. During the past 25 years, the business model Faith created has led Greystar to become one of the industry’s largest operators of apartments—and more lately, student housing, with its recent $4.6-billion purchase of Education Realty Trust.
GreyStar has more than 435,000 units under management in 150-plus markets globally, totaling more than $80 billion of real estate. Its platform is dedicated to managing capital on behalf of a global network of institutional investors, with more than $26 billion in gross assets under management, including $9.7 billion of developments under way.
Since entering the UK in 2013, Greystar has built a property portfolio worth £4.5 billion, representing 32,000-plus units, and comprising both student housing and multifamily rental accommodations. The company is an investor and operator of student brand Chapter and a shareholder in student accommodation provider iQ. More recently, the company has expanded its presence internationally, with operations in the Netherlands, Spain and Latin America, including Mexico City and Chile. What’s more, Greystar has major institutional investors from every corner of the globe and launched a new Asia-Pacific rental housing platform with Macquarie Capital in October 2016.
In August 2018, Greystar, together with Credicorp Capital, announced the final close on Fondo de Inversión Credicorp Capital Renta Residencial II, its second discretionary commingled multifamily development fund in Chile with aggregate equity commitments of more than $100 million. This is the largest-ever fundraise in the history of Chile’s multifamily market. Including leverage, the fund has $350 million in total capital available to invest, which will finance the development of five to seven multifamily properties with an aggregate of approximately 1,500 units in the eastern region of Santiago.