Yael (00:00)

Hey everyone. Thank you so much for joining us today. My name is Yael Shemer and I'm your host. Today on the show, we have a very, very special guest that we have had the honor to work with for almost two years now. Thank you so much for coming to the show and being with us today.

Selam (00:18)

Thank you so much for the invite. I'm so happy to be with you. I always love Tulu, so — why not?

Yael (00:27)

Our industry is changing so fast. When we thought about our show and how we wanted to highlight different voices, we thought about you immediately. Today I want to talk about your story and your experience in multifamily. You've had almost 20 years working across hospitality, community, and residential multifamily management. Our listeners are really going to enjoy your lessons. Let's get started — what was it about those early days in your career that made you want to choose a path in multifamily?

Selam (01:10)

My name is Selam Egzeabher. I'm going to go a little deep on my background. I'm from Ethiopia — my parents are Eritrean, but I was born in Ethiopia and came to the States when I was 10. My mom owned a hotel and we lived in the hotel, on one level of it. So everyone in my family is hospitality and food and beverage. We live and breathe hospitality. I went to school for hospitality and worked in the industry for about eight or nine years before venturing into property management. A cousin of mine recommended it to me — she said, Selam, you're such a people person, you're bubbly, you'd be great at talking to people and helping them find their home. Why not test it out? So I did. I started my property management career in the DMV area — DC's West End and Georgetown, then Bethesda and Rockville, then back to Arlington, Pentagon City, Crystal City. Then Greystar offered me my first community manager role, which brought me to Philadelphia. I moved there on April 3rd, 2019, and started at a lease-up — 1600 Callowhill, a 98-unit property near Logan Circle and the art museum area. After a successful lease-up there, I was promoted in December 2019 to general manager and took over two more assets plus a condo — managing three residential buildings simultaneously. Two of the properties I took over were not stabilized, sitting in the low 70s and low 80s occupancy. We had to go through a complete renovation and rebranding of two properties. And then in February 2020, the pandemic hit. It was such an interesting time — managing three assets while dealing with material shortages, trying to keep occupancy growing while boarding up windows. I don't think I would have had that type of experience anywhere else, and I learned so much. It started shifting the way I think about property management. It's not just what the unit offers — the pandemic created work-from-home and the necessity of easily accessible amenities. And now we're in the world of technology. All those experiences led me to properly manage the asset, stabilize them, rebrand them, and deliver a beautiful result. That led to another promotion in December 2021 — I took over East Market, Philadelphia's flagship property. It's a truly mixed-use development: residential, retail, restaurants, a hotel, healthcare services, co-working spaces. Managing such a diverse space has been the most exciting and dynamic chapter of my career. And my background in hospitality played a huge role in how I manage. I used to plan very high-pressure conferences — the World Bank, IMF conventions. Those require you to pay attention to detail, to communicate consistently, and to be uncompromising about those things. That mindset carried over to property management. In a hotel, you have one opportunity — one moment — to please a guest. That experience, that attention to detail, is what I brought to property management and what has led me to be successful as a leader. People are everything to me. Their success is my happiness. Seeing someone grow from entry level to my level — that's what drives me and makes me so passionate about this industry.

Yael (08:33)

Thank you for sharing that. For those who don't know East Market — it truly is a unique property. You have the supermarket, the buildings, a hospital close by, a mix of young professionals and people just arriving in Philadelphia. I'd love to take a deep dive into the early days at the Ludlow and the Gerrard. You've won both the Greystar Excellence Award and the Greystar Efficiency Award — essentially the holy grail in the industry. You've had exceptional leasing and exceptional retention in those buildings. We keep getting calls from operators saying "we've seen you guys at Ludlow." What goes into starting a property that starts winning awards and building that kind of reputation?

Selam (09:41)

East Market is a very complex property. You have two high-rise buildings alongside commercial spaces — and that entails two management companies. You have Greystar, the biggest property management company nationwide and worldwide, managing these assets, and you also have CBRE. So you have two major property management companies assigned to manage one asset for one client. And then in addition to those complexities, you add Roost — our corporate and short-term housing — and then union labor. So you have four entities trying to work as one as smoothly as possible. The first thing I did was align Greystar's policies and procedures with CBRE, alongside the union, alongside Roost. I came in right after COVID, carrying a lot of delinquency. COVID was very tough — East Market had to get leased up twice. When I got there I had to clean up the delinquency and build the operational infrastructure for a property transitioning from lease-up mentality into an actual stabilized operating status. When you're stabilized, you look at the long run — what works and what doesn't. In a lease-up, you're still learning the market and adjusting. There's a lot of trial and error. That's the beauty of a lease-up. So when you bring someone who's done both, the vision for how you want to manage the property becomes very clear. First thing I did: build the relationships. You have to build rapport with CBRE, with the union, with Roost. You have to be able to communicate and compromise to come up with solutions that work for all. Once those things are ironed out, you focus on your people — choosing your teams carefully, assessing their backgrounds, seeing how adaptable they are. This property is very different from a normal property, but different in a way that is successful. Once I had the right team in place, I worked with the management companies on training manuals, fire drills, emergency protocols — because when East Market's fire panels are connected to the entire complex, if a restaurant sets off an alarm, it goes off in my building too. You have to work together to remediate those occurrences. With a large mixed property, there's more liability, more things that happen, which is why clear policies and trained people are so critical. As a leader, I set clear expectations. I involve my team in decision-making — when people feel included in decisions, they feel a sense of ownership and go above and beyond. I'm transparent. I share the why behind everything we're doing. Nothing at the property is unmeasurable. When I set my team's goals for the year, I'm looking at the budget — that's what sets the direction. What do I want to invest in? What do I want to see for next year? These things take time. You plan ahead. You use data to be better prepared. That budget is broken into positions and translated into what each person is doing daily, and how that daily work affects the bottom-line NOI. I give knowledge. When you give knowledge to the people who work for you, and you invest the time to make sure they understand, the return on that investment looks like an award-winning property. That is the key.

Yael (17:12)

That's incredibly inspiring. You have an end user that's both the resident and the ownership group, and many other stakeholders always in the back of your head. When you think about resident experience — you see your residents in the hallway, by the coffee machine, by the Tulu unit — I know you like surveys, I know you like to talk to your residents before making decisions. Can you walk us through how you think about improving resident experience while also balancing NOI efficiency?

Selam (18:13)

I'll start with experience — because experience is what I'm a perfectionist about. That's what hotel trained me to care about. Back in the day, residents were okay with a regular apartment. Then it became about how many amenities you have. But now every building that opens has the same or more amenities. So what sets you apart? In Philadelphia, over 10,000 units are being delivered between last year and this year. I've been here since 2018, so I'm an older property now. I have to think about what needs to be updated in my amenity spaces, and what will enhance the resident life cycle. Experience means setting that intimate connection with your residents. Every conversation with an employee is an opportunity to build rapport. Because what's going to set you apart from every other building is the service you provide — and taking resident feedback and actually acting on it. The best investment so far, and I still get people coming to me saying "how did you think of this" — is Tulu. What Tulu presents is a high-end look. It doesn't look like a vending machine. It's a high-end storage locker system with high-quality items residents actually need. When you talk to your residents and get to know them, they start telling you: I don't have a closet for this, so I just don't own it. And I'd say: you don't have to buy an upholstery cleaner — you can just rent it. That convenience is exactly what they're looking for. At the Gerrard, we had a kids' room — a playroom area — that unfortunately wasn't getting utilized. So I sent out surveys and asked what residents wanted to see. Everyone said: workspace. Two years later, I turned it into a beautiful workspace that now everyone uses. I extended it to the outdoor area. That's what making your amenities work really means. You take the conversation, you make something from it, and that builds your property's reputation. That builds trust. That builds retention. At the Ludlow, multiple residents told me: you know, those residents with terraces can plant garden boxes — but the rest of us don't have that. And they brought up pollinators, bees that are becoming extinct. Why not bring them to Center City? So I looked into it — and I installed a beehive right in the lot. They're growing, they're thriving, and it's part of our sustainability initiative. We're a LEED-certified building. These are feedbacks we take and translate into something that affects not just the residents' lives, but the community and the city. Residents harvest from the garden and we do resident events — cooking classes with ingredients we've grown ourselves. Getting your residents involved and listening to them is everything. And I go back to Tulu: it's a genuinely innovative tool that truly works with apartment living. There are things you don't have space for, and Tulu makes those things convenient. I'm hoping to bring Tulu back to the Gerrard this year — I think I've got an approval.

Yael (25:04)

I love that story. A beehive — who would have thought? You pivoted from a kids' room that wasn't working to coworking space, and now to a rooftop garden and bees. Every property truly is different from the one next door, and it's the general manager and the team's role to listen to residents.

Selam (26:00)

I love listening to our residents. They have such great ideas. And when you have passion for what you do, it really truly shows in the way you manage your property. I give full autonomy to my team members because they're capable of delivering the vision we've set together. And then it's those extra miles — calling residents after 30 days in, 60 days, 90 days, six months — those are the things that separate you. Your reputation matters. You can't always make everybody happy, but you can always try. And my goal is always to try.

Yael (27:07)

Retention and renewal are really outcomes of happiness. When people are staying in Philadelphia or Arlington for a long time, choosing the same building, even starting families there — that's the real indicator. I think about a quote from the former prime minister of New Zealand about leading with kindness, and how that was actually her strength. When we bring humanity and kindness, we get much better results than if we only focus on financials or efficiency. Efficiency without heart can only last so long. What you're doing is giving longevity to your properties and creating a legacy.

Selam (28:24)

Thank you. I appreciate it.

Yael (28:26)

As we wrap up — where do you think the industry is heading? What are the biggest challenges and the biggest opportunities?

Selam (28:45)

I see the future of multifamily going more toward mixed-use properties. People want convenience — it's not just about the apartment and the amenity, but what's surrounding you. When I look at new developments, a lot more are adding mixed-use components: retail space, restaurant space, proximity to hospitals. They're trying to create a city within a city. That's what East Market is — literally a city within a city. Two plazas, hospitals, hotels, co-working, residential all in one. I see the industry moving much more in that direction, and it's great to be among the first to be here and thriving the way we're thriving.

Yael (30:04)

Is there one change or innovation you're particularly hopeful about?

Selam (30:13)

Technology. When I look at buildings and what they're coming up with — the leasing process, building access through an app — it's so focused on making apartment living seamless. I saw a feature where residents can submit an emergency work order and a technician can FaceTime with them to diagnose the issue before even arriving and give them instructions in real time. We don't have that yet but it's coming. I also see AI playing a larger role in our industry — virtual tours, virtual check-ins, virtual pickups. That side of things is a little scary to me as a millennial and a people person. But I want to see how my skill set aligns with that and how I can make it work the way I work now. It's exciting, scary, and we'll see where it goes — but there's a lot of technology coming.

Yael (32:13)

Properties like the Ludlow and the Gerrard that are people-first and customer-centric will only get more enhanced with AI — it gives us more capacity to do more things that are resident-oriented and that can influence the future of living in those buildings. Selam, I want to thank you for your time and for your partnership. I'm sure our listeners will truly enjoy this episode, and I can't wait to see where you're heading.

Selam (32:48)

Thank you so much. I really appreciate being invited to this platform. It truly means a lot. Thank you.

Yael (32:55)

Thank you so much, and thank you everyone for listening. Have a good day.

Selam (33:00)

You too — have a good one.