MAA, Greystar Pace NMHC's Top 50 Apartment Lists

Like many industries, the apartment sector faced a challenging year in 2020.

While stay-at-home orders, eviction moratoriums and other difficulties caused market deteriorations, the apartment sector recovered as the year progressed as investors ultimately returned from the sidelines.

Apartments had the most sales in commercial real estate in 2020 at $138.7 billion, according to Real Capital Analytics. Still, transactions were down in 2020.

With transactions limited, it’s little surprise that there wasn’t a lot of movement at the top of the 32nd edition of The National Multifamily Housing Council’s Top 50, which ranks the nation’s largest apartment owners, managers, developers, builders and syndicators.

Germantown, Tenn.-based MAA stayed atop the list of the country’s largest apartment owners with 100,490 apartment homes owned. This was the third straight year the REIT broke the 100,000-unit mark. MAA grew its portfolio with a couple of large deals, including mergers with Post Properties in 2016 and Colonial Properties Trust in 2013. Overall, the NMHC 50 top owners’ control 2,318,732 units, which accounts for 9.9% of the total U.S. apartment stock.

Charleston, S.C.-based Greystar Real Estate Partners continued its reign as the largest apartment manager with 669,137 apartments under their management. The company, which saw a significant increase in units under management after its 2014 merger with Riverstone Residential, had triple the number of units under management as any competitor. 

The NMHC 50 top managers collectively managed 3,899,797 units.

Greystar Real Estate Partners was also the largest apartment developer with 8,525 apartments started in 2020, while Jacksonville, Fla.,-based Summit Contracting Group retained its spot as the country’s highest-producing apartment builder. It started 9,159 apartments in 2020, which was more than 1,400 more units than the next builder on the list. There were 364,600 apartments completed in 2020, according to the Census Bureau.

Boston-based Boston Financial Investment Management became the nation’s largest apartment tax credit syndicator with 186,785 apartments syndicated in 2021. In 2020, it ranked eighth.

“The initial onset of the pandemic and resulting financial distress was deeply concerning for the health of the industry. However, despite initial fears, the multifamily sector experienced a sharp rebound after the second quarter,” said Caitlin Sugrue Walter, vice president of research for the National Multifamily Housing Council, in a prepared statement. “That positive trend continues today as shown by growth in deal flow. The recovery is not yet complete, but the industry is well-placed for a strong 2021.”

NMHC partners with Kingsley (a Grace Hill Company) to conduct the research for the NMHC 50.