How to Find Apartment Building Owners

There are lots of apartments and multi-family dwellings in major cities, and it can be difficult to identify the people and companies that actually own (not manage) these buildings. In this post, we’ll be answering:

• How do I find out who owns an apartment building or complex?

• How do you find multifamily property owners? 

• Can you find an apartment owner’s phone number? Email address?

Who is this for? From a B2B standpoint, there are many trades that support apartment buildings: HVAC, plumbing, security, and property management are just a few examples. 

Biscred is the best platform for finding CRE decision makers at multifamily properties such as apartment buildings. Read on to learn how to find contact information for building owners, operators and key decision makers. 

Types of Apartment Buildings

An apartment building is a single structure, typically with multiple stories, that contain three or more separate and independent living units. They can range from two-story fourplexes to skyscrapers with thousands of units. 

The main types of apartment buildings are:

• Apartment complex: Multifamily residential properties with more than one multi-unit building on one piece of land. Gated apartment communities with multiple buildings, or two large adjacent apartment buildings owned by the same company on the same plot of land, are both considered apartment complexes. 

• Low-rise apartment: An apartment building that’s 1 to 4 stories tall and may not have elevators (depending on when it was built). Units rent generally for less than mid- and high-rise apartments and are commonly found in neighborhoods and other areas where skyline visibility is a concern. 

• Mid-rise apartments: Apartment buildings that are typically 4 to 10 stories with elevators, often found in suburbs or metro areas. Mid-rise apartments may have community-focused amenities, such as a gym, pool, and common areas indoors and outdoors. Generally, mid-rise apartment buildings or complexes convey a sense of community or neighborhood. 

• High-rise apartments: The largest of the apartment types, high-rise apartments are defined as structures with an occupied floor more than 75 feet above the lowest level of fire department vehicle access (usually ground level). They are, generally, 10 or more stories tall and found in dense urban areas. What qualifies as a high-rise is somewhat relative — a building that dominates the skyline in Sacramento might be unremarkable in downtown Manhattan.  

Apartment buildings are a type of multifamily dwelling, which is an asset class under the umbrella of commercial real estate. Even though apartments are homes, they’re still considered to be commercial properties, not residential (if there are more than 4 units on a single property). Why is this? Because apartments are income-generating for the owners and, for tax purposes, have to be classified as commercial. Learn more about the eight types of multifamily dwellings and how they’re identified. 

Who’s Who: Apartment Owners, Operators, Managers

Apartment buildings and complexes are usually multi-million dollar investments and not owned by just one person or entity. Instead, multiple investors, companies, trusts, and private equity will often come together to purchase an apartment building or complex. So who are these groups?

• REIT: A real estate investment trust is a company modeled after a mutual fund where investors receive dividend income streams from the property. REITs purchase or develop apartment buildings and commercial properties to provide income to their investors. Some REITs will also manage their own properties. 

• Private equity: Private equity is typically made up of pooled capital from institutional and high-net-worth investors who purchase commercial property as part of their investment portfolios. Their goals with owning an apartment complex will depend on where the property fits in their portfolio. 

• Family offices: Wealth management companies for high-net-worth families represent the interests of single investors or families and manage wealth on an intergenerational basis. These companies may sometimes purchase apartment properties as investments. 

• Individual investors: Individual ownership becomes increasingly rare as building size grows; it’s more common with low-rise apartments, small apartment buildings, or very small complexes. These individuals are usually directly involved in the apartment’s operation as the sole investor.

Who to Contact: Apartment Operator, Property Manager or Owners?

Apartment operators or managers are the companies or employees responsible for the day-to-day operations of a multifamily property. They handle leasing, processing rental income, fulfilling maintenance requests, and managing third-party vendors. 

Depending on the size of an apartment complex, there may be one or multiple managers. Sometimes, apartments are themselves managed by a third-party organization that provides services for leasing (like a tenant portal for paying rent and submitting maintenance requests). For smaller apartments, there may just be one manager who subcontracts maintenance to a handyman or other vendors. 

When to contact the property manager or operator: If you are a vendor offering services or supplies to support day-to-day operations, the decision makers to contact are most likely apartment operators and managers, not the property owner.

When to contact the property owner: When it comes to capital improvements, financing, insurance, and major purchases, the owner or owners' representatives are the decision makers to contact. Property management companies looking to win new contracts should also go directly to the owner — they're the ones who hire and oversee property management firms.

Types of Companies That Do Business with Apartment Buildings & Complexes

Property managers, operators, and owner-operators look for plenty of types of vendors and services for their properties. Below are the main categories of service providers and some of the sub-services underneath each provider. 

Groundskeeping

• Professional landscaping

• Tree care

• Gardening

• Seasonal maintenance

• Irrigation

• Site cleanup

• Pest control

Building exterior

• Painting

• Pressure washing

• Siding

• Roofing

• Fencing

• Window or door installation

• Sealing or exterior restoration

Building interior

• Plumbing

• HVAC

• Electrical

• Elevator/lift maintenance

• Janitorial services

Security

• Security patrol

• Parking enforcement

• Alarm response

• Cameras/surveillance systems

Technology

• Telecommunications (phone and internet)

• Gate systems

• Tenant portals

Amenities

• Pool maintenance

• Washer/dryer/appliance maintenance

• Fitness center cleaning and maintenance 

• Clubhouse maintenance

Professional services

• Legal (for lease contracts, disputes, and evictions)

• Services for leasing (e.g., vetting tenants, background checks)

• Inspection

• Insurance 

How Biscred Connects You With Multifamily Decision Makers

The Biscred database houses information about 4.2 million (and growing) commercial real estate buildings. Our data team is continuously adding and updating companies, people, and building data, so what you see in the following examples will differ from what you see when you schedule a demo.  

From the Buildings section, set the primary zoning type to Residential. To further narrow the results, you might optionally set the zoning subtype to Multifamily. In this example, selecting residential narrows the buildings to 1.9 million. Other building filters include geography (region, state, metro and ZIP codes) and size (number of units, stories, and square footage).

In this example, we set the stories to 21-30 (high-rise) and set location to Chicago metro. This gives us 62 buildings and 196 companies. From here, we can learn who owns, operates and represents the various buildings.

If you prefer a visual representation of an area, select the Map option. You can zoom in and out and move around the map, just as you would if you were using a GPS map for navigation. 

When you select a building, you will see companies associated with this address. In the example, the high-rise at 1500 North Lake Shore Drive, Chicago, currently lists 11 companies associated with this address. 

Select View All Companies to see all companies (owners/investors, property managers, real estate brokers and agents, professional services, etc.) associated with a building. In the next example, we can see information about an apartment building in Kansas, including the property management, legal, investor, and professional services firms. (We’ve redacted company names in this example.)

Who Are the Top 50 Multifamily Owners?

To answer a common question about the top owners in apartment CRE, we set the Biscred filters to the following industries: institutional investors, private equity firms, REIFs and REITs. We set asset experience to multifamily. Our search generates 14,287 companies and 228,870 buildings. 

Largest Multifamily Property Owner-Operator-Investors by Contact Count

These are the top 10 largest multifamily property owner-operator-investment companies based on number of contacts in the Biscred database.

1. Greystar Worldwide

2. AECOM Capital

3. Toll Brothers

4. Lennar

5. JP Morgan Chase and Company

6. Raymond James Financial

7. Siemens

8. Mortenson Construction

9. Skanska USA

10. Weyerhaeuser

Snapshot: Greystar Worldwide

Greystar is one of the largest owner/operators in the country, providing property management, investment management, and development/construction services for rental and multifamily properties. They manage 1.1 million multifamily units globally and have a wide range of expertise. They’re an example of a property management company that also has an interest in developing and maximizing the investment potential of a property. An example of Greystar’s multifamily real estate:

• Active Adult Communities: Greystar manages and constructs active adult communities (55+) in several states across three brands: Album, Overture, and Everleigh. 

Largest Multifamily Property Owner-Operator-Investors by Property Count

These are the top multifamily property owner-operator-investment companies based on number of properties in the Biscred database. 

1. SITG Capital

2. Blueground Holdings

3. John M. Corcoran and Company

4. Blackstone

5. Universe Holdings Development

6. Blackstone Real Estate Investment Trust (a subsidiary of Blackstone)

7. Contour Companies

8. Vision Communities

9. Boston Financial Investment Management

10. Warmington Properties

Snapshot: SITG Capital

SITG Capital is an investment organization that manages the Peregrine Income Fund, which provides income to investors through real estate investment and development. Their portfolio includes undervalued multifamily housing investments properties that they developed, manage, and built/rebuilt. 

• Cullen: 64-unit apartment complex in downtown Houston.

• Excelsior on the Park: rebuilt six burned-down units and increased overall occupancy in this Houston community 

Largest Multifamily Property Owner-Operator-Investors Based on Est. Revenue & Company Size

The following are the largest multifamily commercial property owners based on estimated revenue ($1 billion or more) and number of employees (1,000+), presented in no particular order.  

• Equity Residential

• Camden Property Trust

• B.F. Saul Company

• Asset Living

• The Carlyle Group

• TPG

Snapshot: B.F. Saul Company

The B.F. Saul Company is a privately-owned investment company that also provides property management and CRE development services. They have a long history of U.S. property development, especially on the East Coast, and focus mainly on Office and Residential property. 

• Hampden House: Manages the luxury apartment complex Hampden House in Bethesda, Maryland

• Park Van Ness: Luxury apartment building in Washington D.C.