Toni Eubanks didn’t set out for a career in the multifamily industry. She had been a trainer for Hallmark Cards for three years after college. When she moved to Dallas, in need of a job, she just happened to ask if anything was available when she was leasing her apartment. She was hired, and her career took off from there.
She started out in leasing for JPI and went through every position on site. She moved up the ranks from community manager and regional manager to senior vice president, overseeing the Western half of the nation, Toronto, and Florida. When Greystar bought JPI’s management arm in 2008, Eubanks made the move and hasn’t looked back.
As of Jan. 1, she assumed executive leadership of Greystar’s U.S. property management platform, which manages over 1 million units and beds globally, from chief operating officer Andrew Livingstone, who transitioned into a senior adviser role.
“As with many people in this sector, it wasn’t intentional. I am grateful that I started at the entry level and learned so much. You can make a phenomenal career for yourself,” she says.
For Eubanks, executive managing director of Greystar Management Services, that first-hand exposure was critical.
“That on-site experience is so incredibly valuable. I have a heart for that. Our on-site teams are the backbone of our communities and for our client community,” she says. “The residents and the on-site team members pay our salaries. If they weren’t there doing what they do every day, our corporate jobs wouldn’t exist. It’s a huge privilege to look after someone’s home, but it’s also a huge responsibility.”
She credits the relationships she’s built along with teamwork. Prior to her new role, she co-led the day-to-day operations of Greystar’s property management business for two years with Mike Clow, executive director of real estate, who joined the firm within two weeks of Eubanks. Clow now reports to Eubanks to continue to drive revenue growth with a focus on Greystar’s client portfolio.
“When I started here, we were doubled up on jobs. I kept my head down and kept going. I worked for Andrew Livingstone, who was a great leader,” she says. “In this job, I want to make our team as well as Andrew and Bob [Faith, Greystar founder, chairman, and CEO] proud. They took a chance on me, and I’m grateful.”
This year, Greystar again leads the National Multifamily Housing Council’s annual top 50 apartment owners and managers lists. As of Jan. 1, the firm owned 119,160 units and surpassed the million mark with 1,014,091 units under management. The firm also came in No. 1 on the top 25 developers list, starting 7,188 units last year, and No. 3 on the top 25 builders list, with 6,490 starts.
“We’re proud of it. We never intended on being the biggest but wanted to be the best. If we really want to be the best, we have to continue to evolve and take advantage of improvement opportunities,” she says. “We do celebrate things, but size isn’t it. We can do better and want to keep pushing ourselves.”
Eubanks says Greystar’s percentage of market share of rental housing management is about 4%. “We can still grow and want to grow,” she adds, noting that 52% of Greystar’s clients have only one property with the firm.
“That’s a staggering fact,” she says. “We’re only as good as the last thing we do for those clients. We will always be focused on growth—organic growth—one property at a time, one client at a time.”
Eubanks notes some bigger moves coming from Greystar this year.
While the firm has been taking its property management model international, being in Europe since 2013, that work continues to grow and thrive with a big focus on Canada this year.
Greystar also will remain close to its bread-and-butter product of multifamily, but she says it does plan to explore the independent living sector.
“We are trying to make a test case to organize around independent living, offering full food service and transportation,” Eubanks shares. “We’re going to make a push into that later this year as we continue to study the sector.”
Risk mitigation is what keeps her up at night, and she prioritizes protecting employees and residents.
“How can we keep people as safe as possible?” she says. “Society in general is unsettled, and we’re seeing that show up with our residents and potential residents. I think that’s challenging for on-site team members. I think studying incident reports, listening to our on-site teams, and being proactive versus reactive are huge steps.”
On the resident side, Greystar rolled out a service recovery program—Make It Right, Right Away—last year to empower team members to spend money if they need to buy a gift to make a situation right if something goes wrong.
“We just started, and I am so proud of the effort. We have done all of these loyalty studies, and residents are more loyal to you if you make a mistake and go on to make it right,” she says. “How can we make it right as best as we can and as quickly as we can? You’re never going to get into trouble for spending the money. That’s how dedicated we are to doing the next right thing.”
Coming from on-site, Eubanks says she has been a fan of monitoring incident reports. She noticed one of the biggest injuries for team members was slip-and-fall accidents. Greystar looked at the shoes people were wearing and rolled out a safety shoe collection. She adds that artificial intelligence is helping recognize patterns at the site level and can look at the reports of 4,000 communities to be more predictive.
“It’s all about how we can protect our people and our residents,” she shares.
Another part of Eubanks’ people focus is around career pathing for employees.
“If maintenance is your thing, accounting, marketing, etc., you can make a great career here,” she says. “I think as long as we keep doing the next right thing and keep our company growing and stable, we can provide growth for our teams.”