Greystar under continued fire, Colorado tenants protest company’s predatory practices

Renters in Westminster, Colorado, at properties owned and managed by the private equity company Greystar have organized with United for a New Economy (UNE) to fight against Greystar’s large rent increases, junk fees, and mold-infested units.

“I still am living in a mold infestation covered with white paint, and I am tired of it. It shouldn’t be this hard to ensure your tenants are safe, especially as a billion-dollar company,” one resident said. “While Greystar’s profits grow and grow, our apartments continue to fall apart, and they don’t address it. When will our health matter more than their wealth?”

A local news story noted that Greystar owns about 10 properties in Westminster and several more throughout the Denver metro area.

Existing tenants told a Denver TV station that they are paying higher rents than the rents that are being offered to existing tenants, up to $400 more a month, for similar apartments. Tenants say they also have to pay fees for things that tenants are not responsible for in other apartments, like pest control.

Tenants are working to get the City of Westminster to pass stronger inspection standards.  City Councilor Jack Johnson said that Greystar and other corporate landlords should be held accountable for poor living conditions. “Here is what corporate landlords need to understand: having more money does not give you more rights,” Johnson said. ”A corporation may own your building. It does not own your community. It does not own your voice. And it does not get to write its own rules.”

United for a New Economy (UNE), a multiracial community organization that “builds people power for racial and economic justice,” and Power Switch Action also recently released a report about Greystar’s leadership role in opposing tenant protections in Colorado. Greystar holds two seats on the Colorado Apartment Association board, which has worked steadfastly to maintain the state law prohibiting cities and counties from enacting local rent stabilization and other tenant protection policies.

The report states that Greystar and other corporate landlords “have established a powerful presence at the state legislature” by “bullying and bamboozling lawmakers and the governor into defending landlords’ ability to profit and price-fix over tenants’ right to safe, healthy, and affordable housing.”

Greystar, the largest manager of rental property in the U.S., managing more than a million rental housing units, has been the subject of a number of negative news stories in the last year. This past summer, a housing advocacy organization filed complaints in six states and the District of Columbia accusing Greystar of violating fair housing laws by refusing to accept federal housing choice vouchers, also known as Section 8, in places that require landlords to accept them.

The allegations came just weeks after a Guardian investigation reported on how Greystar piled fees on the tenants in its buildings and the impact of those fees on renters.  The Guardian counted at least 125 different named fees that tenants may be charged at Greystar properties.

Last December, Greystar agreed to pay $24 million to settle charges by the Federal Trade Commission and the state of Colorado that the company misrepresented the true cost of renting a Greystar property by displaying a deceptively low rental price that did not include fees.

In November 2025, Greystar paid $7 million to settle a lawsuit brought by nine states alleging that Greystar used RealPage property management software to collude with other landlords in setting rental prices.