How He Built a 30,000-Unit Housing Empire | Jeff Jaeger

**No Vacancy with Taylor Avakian**

**Episode Title:** How He Built a 30,000-Unit Housing Empire | Jeff Jaeger

**Guests:** Jeff Jaeger (Co-founder and Principal, Standard Communities)

**Host:** Taylor Avakian

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[00:00] **Taylor Avakian:** Welcome back to No Vacancy, everyone. Today, we're diving deep into one of the most pressing issues facing our nation: the severe affordable housing shortage. We're talking about millions of renters paying over 30% of their income on housing, and a staggering 7.4 million unit shortage across the U.S. To help us understand this crisis and, more importantly, how private capital is stepping up to address it, I'm thrilled to have Jeffrey Jaeger, co-founder and principal of Standard Communities, join us. Jeff, thank you so much for being here.

[00:45] **Jeff Jaeger:** Taylor, it's a pleasure to be here. Thanks for having me.

[00:50] **Taylor Avakian:** Jeff, Standard Communities is now one of the nation's leading affordable housing platforms, managing over 30,000 units across 22+ states, with a goal of 50,000 by 2030. It's an incredible achievement, but I want to start at the beginning. Can you walk us through your background and how you first got into real estate?

[01:15] **Jeff Jaeger:** Absolutely. My journey into real estate started pretty early, right out of college. I actually began my career in multifamily brokerage. This was back in the late 90s, early 2000s, a very different market than today. I spent a good amount of time learning the ropes, understanding market dynamics, and really getting a feel for the transactional side of the business. It was an invaluable experience that taught me a lot about asset valuation and deal structuring.

[02:06] **Taylor Avakian:** So, you were on the brokerage side. What was that like, and what were some of the key lessons you learned during that period?

[02:15] **Jeff Jaeger:** Brokerage is a fantastic training ground. You’re constantly analyzing deals, interacting with a wide range of investors from small private owners to institutional players. The biggest lesson was understanding what drives value, what makes a deal attractive, and how to identify opportunities that others might miss. It also taught me the importance of relationships and building trust in the industry. I was specifically focused on multifamily, which gave me a deep understanding of the asset class from the ground up.

[02:55] **Taylor Avakian:** And from brokerage, you transitioned into more of an institutional role, correct?

[03:00] **Jeff Jaeger:** That's right. After a few years in brokerage, I moved to the institutional side, working with a large pension fund advisory firm. This was a significant shift, moving from the transactional world to a more strategic, principal-investing mindset. My role there involved advising on large-scale real estate investments, managing portfolios, and understanding the long-term capital allocation strategies of institutional investors. It gave me a much broader perspective on real estate as an asset class and how it fits into a diversified portfolio.

[03:52] **Taylor Avakian:** That's a huge leap, from advising on pension funds to eventually building your own empire. What was the catalyst for you to make that jump to the principal side and start building your own portfolio?

[04:05] **Jeff Jaeger:** The transition was really driven by a desire to be more hands-on, to be the one making the investment decisions and building something tangible. On the advisory side, you're guiding others, which is rewarding, but I wanted to be the principal taking the risk and reaping the rewards. I also started to see certain asymmetric opportunities in the market, particularly in multifamily, that I felt I could capitalize on more effectively as a principal. This was around the mid-2000s, leading up to the 2008 crisis.