Making Rent Work For Greenville: Affordable Housing Solutions for Working Residents in Upstate

Making Rent Work For Greenville – People Working In Greenville Often Can’t Afford Rents; Affordable Upstate Provides Options

Whether it’s 1969 federal legislation called the Brooke Amendment, pop-finance guru Dave Ramsey, or online tips from Chase personal banking … people are advised to spend no more than 25% to 30% of their income on housing. This year the starting salary for a Greenville County Schools teacher with a bachelor’s degree is $47,738. So, the teacher’s rent should not exceed $995 per month (at 25% of annual income).

But teachers aren’t alone. According to Affordable Upstate, most firefighters, auto mechanics, police officers and electricians in the area earn $54,000 or less per year. Administrative assistants and those who work in retail, food service or construction likely make less, closer to $27,000 per year. All need housing at rents that mostly don’t exist. Only 2% of apartment rents listed online are $1,000 per month or less, says Brian Albers, also a founder and principal at Affordable Upstate.

Brian Albers and Mario E. Brown decided to address the need for affordable apartments after meeting in 2016 during Leadership Greenville, a 10-month program of the Greenville Chamber of Commerce that explores issues facing the city, the county and the Upstate.

Brown had invested in real estate, including an eight-unit multi-family complex. Albers was a certified financial planner with Raymond James.

“We had a desire to build our own businesses,” Albers says. “We thought it would be good to do that by serving a community need – to do good while doing well financially.”

Together they decided to purchase properties, improve them, price them reasonably and manage them well. In 2017, the pair renovated a 36-unit apartment complex in Pacolet, Albers says. “Then we bought another 27 units, by pulling equity out of our own homes.”

Two years later, they identified multiple properties they could improve. To do so, they needed investors. Affordable Upstate is not a nonprofit. “We partnered with like-minded, local, mostly entrepreneurs, people who were used to investing in LLCs rather than the stock market,” Albers says. “We can do good for both the community and our investors. We are at the intersection of profit and purpose. Leadership Greenville helped us understand that there was a need. And we parlayed that with real market skill,” Brown says.

The company has raised $55 million from investors, he says. “We believe that for-profit interest is the engine of social impact. Things need to be profitable to be sustainable.”

When a property is purchased, Southeast Affordable Housing Administration – a nonprofit partner – manages governmental regulations, affordable housing incentives and other programs. The company now owns 1,500 apartments in Spartanburg, Anderson and Greenville counties. Rents are from $900 to $1,100, Brown says. A teacher’s salary fits in that range, and that was the goal, he says.

The area median household income in Greenville County was $89,000 in 2023, according to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. In Greenville County, about 9% of the total workforce earns less than a third of that amount ($29,000 or less annually). And 55% of the workforce earns between one-third and one-half of the area median income ($45,000 annually or less). Added together, that means “two-thirds of all Greenville County is at 50% or below. And at 50% AMI level, you can’t afford more than $1,000 a month in rent,” Albers says.