Evergreen Real Estate Group announced Robert Person has joined the company as head of market-rate acquisitions.
In his newly created position, Person will focus on diversifying Evergreen’s portfolio to include more market-rate housing while securing additional capital sources that enhance the firm’s ability to acquire, develop and preserve affordable housing on a greater scale nationally. As part of its expansion, Evergreen plans to pursue both affordable and market-rate deals in new markets, with a focus on the Midwest and Sunbelt.
Prior to joining Evergreen, Person worked for Strategic Properties of North America, where he was most recently head of acquisitions, after serving as director of capital markets from 2018 to 2020. In these roles, he focused on market-rate apartments and condo deconversions and, in the last four years, oversaw the acquisition of over 2,100 units of market-rate housing.
Since 2015, and separate from his roles at Evergreen and Strategic Properties of North America, Person has worked alongside developer Bob Dunn and his firm, Landmark Development, and Gerald Fogelson and his firm, Fogelson Properties, in planning One Central, a 35-acre mixed-use megaproject in downtown Chicago that would be built above the Metra rail lines just west of Soldier Field. Once completed, the multibillion-dollar development is predicted to create tens of thousands of new jobs.
Earlier in his career, Person worked as a special situations analyst and, later, as vice president for DAC Financial Management (China) Ltd. in Hong Kong, where he bought distressed debt and non-performing loans and earned experience on the acquisitions side. He began his career as a trader at the Chicago Board of Trade.
Person holds a bachelor’s degree in economics from Butler University’s Lacy School of Business. During his time at Butler, he attended Beijing Foreign Studies University, Language Exchange, where he studied Mandarin. He also completed graduate studies in accounting at Northwestern University within the CPA certification program, with a focus on forensic accounting.
