Housing is the hottest topic in Pittsburgh. It helped define the May mayoral primary and remains a buzzy topic on social media. Home prices locally continue to rise — bucking a nationwide trend — and this, plus disagreements over how best to keep homes affordable for longtime residents, has led to increasingly tense discussions about housing equity and gentrification.
It’s against that backdrop that Riparian Management LLC, a Baltimore-based company, made a “landmark” deal, according to brokers with Colliers which oversaw it, to purchase 297 properties owned by Wylie Holdings L.P. Wylie’s portfolio included a number of keystone properties along trendy Butler Street in Lawrenceville and in other neighborhoods. Brokers also called it “the most complex transaction we have worked on in brokerage so far” when the deal closed in August 2024.
“When we met the Wylie team, we were delighted to learn that their values and approach aligned largely with ours even as their portfolio would give us exposure to a vibrant and growing market like Lawrenceville,” Riparian’s managing principal and CEO, Kris Garin, tells Pittsburgh City Paper.
Almost a year later, Riparian tenants, many of whom stayed on under leases that originated with Wylie, say they’ve faced utility problems, poor communication, and sudden notices to vacate. Some say Riparian seems to lack the staff necessary to address their issues. Garin acknowledges that the transition wasn’t as smooth as his company had hoped.
“While our entire team works incredibly hard every day and is deeply committed to delivering for our residents and the communities we serve, we must acknowledge that many of our new residents last year did not have the experience that we want for them — and that we have work to do to get those relationships where they need to be,” he says.
Wylie reshaped Lawrenceville, especially the 10th Ward. (The company did not respond to emailed requests for comment by presstime.) Depending on what Riparian does next, it has the opportunity to do the same — for better or worse.
A mounting affordability crisis
Many buildings along Butler Street, especially above 51st, were once pieces of the Wylie portfolio. That’s been largely beneficial for the streetscape as the company renovated mixed-use buildings now home to a growing number of businesses. In a Pittsburgh Business Times article covering the sale to Riparian, one business owner notes the company “took a chance” on Lawrenceville, one that ultimately paid off. (The terms of the sale have not been disclosed.)
Residents differ on whether Wylie was a satisfactory landlord. City Paper spoke to seven current and former residents of Riparian properties on and off the record, the majority of whom had previously rented from Wylie. Some described what amounts to an average landlord that also did important renovations to dilapidated properties, while other tenants complained of unaddressed problems and aggressive legal posturing, including cease-and-desist letters sent when they complained on social media.
“It was not great, but I think one of the biggest differences is that the entire team was local,” says one former tenant, who asked to remain anonymous out of fear of legal reprisal. “When compared with Riparian, Wylie looks amazing. It was just more of a small-town feel, and we — at least, I — got better maintenance.”
Even if it felt small-town, Wylie’s portfolio swelled over the years as the company bought houses and commercial properties in Lawrenceville and the broader East End. Many mixed-use parcels along the now-booming stretch of Butler Street north of Allegheny Cemetery were once Wylie properties and have since passed to Riparian.
“I never actually fact-checked this myself, but it was said that they owned some 20% of 10th-Ward Lawrenceville,” Pittsburgh City Councilor Deb Gross tells CP.
Gross says Wylie eventually became the “800-pound gorilla in the room” in Upper Lawrenceville. As rent rose and the neighborhood gentrified, residents spoke out. This process led the Lawrenceville Corporation to create the city’s first affordable housing land trust, now the City of Bridges Land Trust.
Lawrenceville’s affordability worries have since become citywide concerns with an influx of real-estate companies from outside Pittsburgh. Large firms and LLCs owned by private equity have been buying and building an increasing share of the region’s housing. Mirroring the discussions in other cities, some have also been accused of predatory practices ranging from price increases to displacement.
In 2023, the Pittsburgh Community Reinvestment Group found that corporate buyers had grown to account for nearly a quarter of the city’s home sales and some 18% of the county’s overall — in many cases, buying up properties in lower-income areas en masse and turning them into rentals. Nationwide, corporate buyers owned around 574,000 single-family homes, or 3.8% of the nation’s supply, as of mid-2022. A survey published in March, found that 48% of American renters said they were leasing from a corporate landlord.
The pace of corporate investment in Pittsburgh-area housing increased dramatically after 2019, one University of Pittsburgh study concluded, and coincided with findings showing that some 42% of county residents spend more than 30% of their income on housing. That’s in no small part because Pittsburgh rents have risen 47.9% since March 2019, outpacing the rest of the U.S., even as local housing is disproportionately old and in need of repair.
“The more of our housing stock that is owned by large institutions outside of the city, the more those rents are just getting vacuumed up and going elsewhere,” Gross says. “I don’t believe this is a healthy trend.”
Near numerous Riparian properties in the 10th Ward, Albion Lawrenceville, a 267-unit project of Chicagoland-based Albion Residential, is reshaping a long-empty section of Butler Street. The neighborhood is livelier. But residents who spoke with CP worry the fast pace of change is leaving behind longtime residents who made Lawrenceville what it is.
The prices in the neighborhood may bear them out. On Riparian’s website as of July 17, the company listed 16 available properties in Lawrenceville, Garfield, Highland Park, and East Liberty with an average size of 1,208.75 sq. ft. Their average rent? $1,656.25 per month, close to the national average of $1,637 and over Pittsburgh’s mean of $1,384.
“ââ[I] raised my kids in and raised my kids to love Lawrenceville, and I’ve watched a lot of people leave it,” former Riparian tenant Erika Clark tells CP. “I’m not anti-progress, but I feel like I’ve been kicked right out of the neighborhood that I have been a part of for a very long time.”
Notice to vacate
Wylie tenants say the announcement of the sale to Riparian came suddenly, if at all. Clark initially reported the email she received about the transfer of assets as spam.
“On August 20, 11 days before rent is due, I’m told, ‘don’t pay rent to the person you’ve been paying rent to for eight years,’” she says. “I thought it was a phishing scam.”
Some tenants say they never got word of the sale. In at least one instance, a tenant continued paying rent to Wylie. Tenants also complained of infrastructure issues and long wait times for repairs following the sale.
Communication was sporadic. Clark says she was given less than 24 hours notice of a mandatory inspection, then the company’s representatives never showed. This happened twice, she says. The second time, she says the company threatened to change her locks if she didn’t comply. Clark says she repeatedly tried to contact Riparian and took emergency time off work but was met with silence.
Kwamé Govine began renting from Riparian in early 2025. He says the company’s Pittsburgh team seemed “thin” and “overwhelmed” from the outset.
“It sounds like they ended up having to take care of a lot all at once,” he tells CP. “When it came to issues that came up, would I get a reply? Yes, but it was always a reply with, ‘Let me check that.’”
On moving with his partner into a Riparian property, Govine says he noticed several issues including a running toilet and non-functioning outlets. Meanwhile, the move itself was stressful. “In terms of prepped and ready for a move-in, you want to get in and forget about it,” he says. “I’ve moved a few times before, and this was probably one of the worst experiences.”
The running toilet contributed to a soaring water bill at the property — charges for using an average of 464 gallons per day plus a past due amount over $650 dating back to November 2024 for a total balance of $1,157.23. CP viewed the bill, which was notably addressed not to Govine, but to an LLC previously owned by Wylie. Given that the toilet issue predated their arrival, Govine resolved not to pay the balance and let Riparian know, but he struggled to reach anyone in Pittsburgh or Baltimore who could help. After his calls were transferred to an automated system, he says, Govine showed up in person at Riparian’s Pittsburgh office. Finally, he says, the issue was resolved and the balance of his water bill paid.
“It was very different than what I’m used to with any landlord or any company that has issues,” Govine says.
Govine wasn’t alone in dealing with utility problems and a lack of communication. Everyone CP spoke to on and off the record listed multiple employees they spoke to at different times, seemingly a sign of high staff turnover. Several say Riparian employees in Pittsburgh openly disparaged the company over the phone — when they answered.
“Spoiler alert: to this day, I’ve never spoken to anyone from Riparian,” Clark quips.
Other tenants highlighted a host of issues, including substandard maintenance, questionable certificates of occupancy, unfulfilled promises to return security deposits or defray moving costs, and sudden notices to vacate, in some cases after both Wylie and Riparian staff reassured tenants they could stay in their homes.
Clark, who lived in Lawrenceville for 15 years, was one such tenant. She says Riparian sent, and then rescinded, an offer to extend her lease.
“On March 12, I’m at the playground with my kids, and I’m checking emails in the evening, and the first thing I see is two new emails,” she says. “I opened the one from Riparian first. The subject line: ‘Pending lease document was canceled by Riparian Management.’” The second email was a 90-day notice to vacate. Clark says Riparian likewise issued one to all of her immediate neighbors.
“Our money is earned in this neighborhood. It is spent in this neighborhood. Our lives were lived in this neighborhood,” Clark says. “There were five homes in our row. All of us were vacated.” At considerable expense, Clark was able to move and keep her children in their previous schools, but she feels stung by the way Riparian treated its tenants, and says her family was forced to absorb a $1,000 rent increase.
“It feels like Baltimore was allowed to come into our neighborhood and just kick us out, and it was incredibly disruptive,” she says.
Rachel Schneider was another tenant who suddenly faced a notice to vacate after years of living in a Wylie property in Polish Hill. “I started scrambling and calling people and being like, how is this legal? I have a fixed lease with them until next March,” Schneider recalls. Adding insult to injury, Schneider says Riparian then offered to sell her back the property for $180,000, a price she describes as “way too much.”
“This place needs a lot of work. It’s got mold issues. I just discovered the porch is falling off,” Schneider says.
She, too, was eventually able to find another home after a period of extreme anxiety (“This has been literal hell for me,” she tells CP). But Schneider and others were lucky — by the time Riparian tenants’ issues made it to Lawrenceville United , at least one tenant found themself without permanent shelter.
Stranded on Butler Street
Dave Breingan, executive director of LU, says two tenants first came to LU and Lawrenceville Corporation with their issues.
“As we started hearing from tenants, their stories have been deeply disturbing. This is one of the largest property owners in Lawrenceville with both residential and a lot of our small business community,” Breingan tells CP. “Most disturbing has been the displacement of longtime community members and some of the maintenance issues we’ve gotten reported to us.”
After learning of the urgency of some Riparian tenants’ plights, LU began scaling up its response and setting out to gather data. LU enlisted the help of Pittsburgh United, a progressive community organizer, to canvass tenants. Gross’ office also got involved. United eventually fanned out to Riparian properties, where they made contact with Clark, Schneider, Govine, and an older Riparian tenant whose family was forced to couch-surf after Riparian forced them to vacate.
Erik Oas, United’s mobilization director, says it was fortuitous that the older tenant, who was caring for multiple grandchildren, had existing relationships with LU and one of their canvassers. “I think it was last week that they had been placed in an apartment,” he tells CP.
But Oas worries that LU and United may have been “too late” to prevent other such occurrences or catch residents who had already vacated their Riparian-owned homes. “Anytime you deal with evictions, it’s a very big red flag,” Oas says. “You have a lot of off-ramps to get to before it gets to that point because it also stays with people for their renting lives.”
Even so, United was able to survey 61 Riparian tenants and gain deeper insights into what they were experiencing. Among respondents, 15 said they’d received notices to vacate, and 16 alleged safety or habitability issues. A sizable majority of 53 said they’d experienced communication issues. Five said they were still waiting on their security deposit — “Landlords in Pennsylvania must return deposits within 30 days of a lease termination, and we’ve gotten multiple reports of that not occurring,” Breingan says. “Tenants may be able to sue for double the amount of the deposit plus interest, and we’ve heard from at least one tenant who has been successful in pursuing this.”
Breingan says LU has made progress in working with the company. LU recently had a “productive” conversation with Riparian’s CEO, in which Garin said the company had overhauled its practices. But broader questions about Riparian’s motives remain.
The anonymous tenant says they found “rodent shit” upon moveout. “I don’t know what qualifies as an absentee landlord, but that’s what I felt like I was dealing with,” they say.
“I don’t want to say [I was] upset, but I was more disappointed that people that I have to trust and I gave my money to are just actively not trying to help,” Govine says. “I felt like they were robbing me, essentially.”
“Obviously, it’s about money,” Clark says. To some extent, she’s frustrated with Wylie’s role in her and other tenants’ predicaments. “Wylie has done great things with rehabbing and renovating and making beautiful homes. But then, at what cost?” she wonders. “It very much feels like OK, thank you … for helping to grow this neighborhood. Your services are no longer required.”
“I would recommend people do some serious research on the management companies before renting and really go into apartments … with the mind of an inspector,” Schneider suggests.
Gross says similar situations will continue as long as corporate landlords are able to capture a large portion of the Pittsburgh housing market.
“If you’re out there in the city of Pittsburgh reading this, and you wish you could buy a house, but you can’t, this is part of the problem,” she says. “They have more money than you, they can move faster than you, and they’re getting the houses.”
Garin acknowledges tenants’ issues and highlighted steps the company has taken to improve its practices, including hiring more staff, upgrading its telephone system and online tenant portal, and streamlining the handling of work orders. “Without making excuses, some of the underlying issues were driven by factors outside of our control that impacted our ability to staff the Wylie portfolio as planned, but that responsibility is ultimately ours alone,” Garin tells CP. “We’ve heard the concerns and have spent much of this spring implementing a coordinated program … to ensure they are resolved.”
So was the Baltimore-based company overmatched, having bought a massive real estate portfolio without an on-the-ground staff to manage it? Or did they inherit a mess from Wylie, a company with its own troubled legal history?
The answer is a little of both. In Part Two, we’ll explore Wylie’s past, Riparian’s present, and Lawrenceville’s future as the Baltimore-based company restructures its Pittsburgh portfolio.
This article appears in Jul 23-29, 2025.
