In this episode, we take a visit back to Matt’s conversation from February 2018 with Keith Oden, Co-Founder and President of Camden Property Trust. Camden is one of the largest multifamily REITs in the U.S. that owns, develops, acquires, sells, and manages apartment communities with a current portfolio of 171 properties containing 58,300 units. We revisit this conversation since the themes of this pre-Covid conversation still deeply resonate. Camden was one of the first REITs to use its scale and business platform to invest meaningfully in technology and it also “took a stand” to create an outstanding culture. At the time of the interview, Camden was celebrating 11th straight year (now on its 14th straight year and currently rated 8th on the list) as one of Fortune Magazine’s “100 Best Companies to Work For”​, an auspicious accomplishment for the first real estate company to achieve any ranking on that list, which lifted the bar for the overall industry.

Keith was co-founder of Camden’s predecessor companies in 1982 and has served Camden as President and Trust Manager since 1993. As a Principal Executive Officer and Director, Keith drives Camden’s strategic initiatives, leads the property operations and corporate support services, and promotes the company’s culture.

After completing his Masters Degree in Business Administration from the University of Texas at Austin, Keith began his career as a management consultant with the then-public accounting firm Deloitte, Haskins and Sells in 1979. He joined Century Development Corporation, one of the most active real estate development firms in the Southwest in 1981, and later became Director of Financial Planning.

For more than twenty years, Keith has been committed to developing one of the best multifamily companies in the industry. Under his purview, Camden successfully completed the mergers of three public real estate companies: Paragon, Oasis Residential, and Summit Properties in 1997, 1998 and 2005, respectively. Keith’s work was instrumental to the assimilation of these three companies into Camden’s culture.

Keith is a member of the Executive Council of the Center for Real Estate Finance at the University of Texas and serves as advisor, financial supporter, guest lecturer and panelist for the faculty and students pursuing their MBAs in real estate finance. He is a member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) and a licensed real estate broker in the State of Texas.