Who Moved Up the Most on Power 100?
Multifamily and single-family rental were the asset classes that we saw as being the most insulated from the vicissitudes of the market (everyone’s gotta have a place to live, amirite?) and for this reason some of Power 100’s biggest leaps involved people and companies that were sitting on a lot of housing.
At the beginning of the year, Greystar had a jaw-dropping (nearly unfathomable) 727,000 units of housing under management. Likewise, the company owns some 99,680 units, which makes Greystar one of the nation’s largest multifamily owners. For this reason Bob Faith rose from a respectable No. 28 to No. 10.
It’s also one of the reasons we ranked TF Cornerstone’s Tom and Fred Elghanayan at No. 49. (Last year they were No. 66.) And given the tapeworm Starwood (STWD) has had for multifamily they rose from No. 27 to No. 4.
Among the real estate firms, the top dogs might have gone up or down a space or two based on various deals, but Cushman & Wakefield (CWK)’s Bruce Mosler had his fingerprints on some of the very biggest leases in New York at Manhattan West last year, so Mosler and C&W’s New York leveled up from No. 37 to No. 15.
Of course, in the zero sum game of 100 spots, every player raised means a player lowered. For a very long time, New York City — and, specifically, New York’s office market — was the biggest game going. Given what’s happened in and to that market, and that we tried to tie this year’s list to broader trends, a number of previous years’ heavies saw their ranking diminish. A lot of the ones who stayed relatively high were the ones who were well diversified, both in terms of asset class and geographical territory.
The biggest jump of the year, however, was JBG Smith (JBGS)’s Matt Kelly. Next month, JBG Smith opens one of the nation’s biggest, most anticipated and most consequential new developments of the year at National Landing, aka Amazon HQ2. The project spans 2.1 million square feet and has been five years in the making.
While JBG Smith has always been a titan of the industry (the company is also poised to release 1,583 apartments next year and has an additional 8,150 units in its pipeline), the HQ2 opening is the kind of big, visionary real estate project that merits a jump from No. 72 last year to No. 17 now. (Admittedly, we may have lowballed them before.)
