COMMERCIAL FOCUS
One of Greystone's most recent initiatives in housing affordability, the Sky Building, offers all residents attractive amenities and a prime location. The project qualified for an historic funding structure by creating hundreds of affordable housing options, a primary goal for Greystone and its founder, Stephen Rosenberg.
INVESTOR SPOTLIGHT
GETTING TO KNOW GREYSTONE
company, and his employees on both a personal and professional level.
Greystone operates in three major areas of real estate:
Lending: Origination and servicing of mortgage loans for multifamily, healthcare, and other commercial real estate. Investment: Development of more than $2 billion in properties nationwide, including owning and managing more than 7,600 multifamily units and 3,800 beds across 30 healthcare facilities. Advisory: Covers affordable housing preservation and development, investment sales of multifamily, affordable, and senior housing, and real estate capital markets. Greystone’s philanthropic endeavors span dozens of categories, including addressing issues of hunger, homelessness, childhood poverty, medical and humanitarian needs, and local community action. In 2017, the company raised more than $45 million for numerous charitable organizations and families via its annual Day of Service and local year-round initiatives. Highlights from the 2017 Greystone Cares Annual Report include: Greystone-supported Murray & Sydell Rosenberg Foundation helps individuals with basic humanitarian needs, medical necessities (in 2016 the foundation funded lifesaving medical services outside of insurance coverage for cancer patients), and educational pursuits to enhance and sustain self-sufficiency. Greystone Disaster Relief efforts in 2017 included offering temporary housing to displaced families in the wake of Hurricanes Harvey and Irma, financial support for wildfire victims, and the donation of $35,000 worth of care packages. Greystone Hunger Initiatives involved financial support and community activism around the country, including delivering hundreds of meals to homebound seniors, sending more than 27,000 meals to poverty-stricken communities in Nicaragua, providing more than 1,800 hot meals to homeless Atlanta, Georgia, residents, and creating access to clean drinking water in Ugandan villages through support of Engineers Without Borders. Greystone Homelessness relief efforts involve ongoing dedication and coordinated effort toward providing quality, affordable housing through the Bridges to Harmony program, which often waives application fees and as much as 75 percent of rents in order to place homeless and displaced veterans, single mothers, recently “aged-out” foster children, and other individuals with no rental or employment history.
THINK REALTY MAGAZINE Tell us a little more about the progression from that telephone and unpainted door to the Greystone of today. In the earliest days of the company, it was just me and one or two other people sitting in the back office of a music store trying to convince people to do business with us. When we started, all we did were workouts on HUD-insured loans for multifamily properties in default. We started with those for two reasons. First, we could help people and really achieve meaningful results in those situations, and second, quite frankly, no one else had a reason to call us back! Fortunately we were then, as now, by nature a phil- anthropic organization, and our goal was to not just write checks from our profits but also create revenue streams that we would be able to use for charity for years to come. For example, we later created Harmo- ny Housing, a not-for-profit funded with equity that purchases affordable multifamily properties around the country. The profits Harmony Housing generates allow it not only to provide for others and enhance lives, but also generate equity to keep the organi- zation growing, investing in other properties, and generating additional cash flow. SR Correct. We are a fully diversified corpora- tion with 34 offices, nearly 8,000 employees, and ownership or management of nearly $30 billion in assets. We have developed more than $2 billion in properties nationwide, own and manage more than 7,600 multifamily units, and manage nearly 3,800 beds across 30 healthcare facilities. In fact, we are one of the largest providers of funding and financ- ing to nursing homes and skilled nursing facilities. I’m also very proud of our work with developers and other not-for-profits that own multifamily real STEPHEN ROSENBERG TRM And that just really scratches the surface of what Greystone does, correct?
Investor Spotlight: Stephen Rosenberg LOGIC AND PHILANTHROPY MAKE A POTENT COMBINATION.
by Carole VanSickle Ellis
including multifamily, healthcare, and commercial real estate. The company (and Rosenberg) retain that laser focus on humility, however, with the result that one of the nation’s largest HUD lenders is also the tactician behind some of the most groundbreaking fund- ing structures today designed to create and sustain affordable housing. Think Realty Magazine sat down with Rosenberg to dive into the unique blend of logic and philanthropy that has yielded such success for him, his
hen Stephen Rosenberg started Greystone & Co. with a telephone
sitting atop an unpainted wood door balanced on two rusty file cabinets, it was easy to maintain his focus on keeping humility within his corporate structure. “We had plenty of humility back then,” he recalled. “We had very little else.” Today, Rosenberg’s company, that same Greystone & Co., employs nearly 8,000 individuals and holds substan- tial presence in multiple industries,
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Carole VanSickle Ellis is the editor of Think Realty Magazine. She can be reached at cellis@thinkrealty.com.
STEPHEN ROSENBERG
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