The sprawling Greenbrook at Shelby Farms apartment complex is home to over 1,000 rental units housed in gray buildings beneath tall, spindly trees. Its website boasts a “resort-style ambience” complete with walking trails, fishing ponds and three swimming pools across 105 acres.
But this complex has a secret: It filed for eviction against 420 tenant households in 2025. That’s the highest number of any rental property in Shelby County — an average of eight eviction filings every week, all year.
According to data compiled by the Eviction Lab at Princeton University, Greenbrook at Shelby Farms is just one of the 100 Memphis-area apartment complexes that filed the most evictions against their tenants last year. Combined, these properties were responsible for nearly 10,000 eviction filings — or around a third of the 27,658 evictions filed in Shelby County in 2025.
As the map above shows, Shelby County’s top evictors are largely concentrated outside of the Poplar corridor that runs through Midtown. Many of the complexes fall within North, South and East Memphis, in neighborhoods including Whitehaven, Berclair and Hickory Hill.
Based on neighborhood demographics, the Eviction Lab estimates that around 81% of the renters who faced eviction in Memphis between April 1, 2024, and April 1, 2025, were Black. This is despite only 67% of all Memphis renters being Black.
Greenbrook at Shelby Farms may have filed the most evictions in 2025, but other apartment complexes filed at an even higher rate compared to their size. University Gardens Manor in Vollintine-Evergreen and The Canopy 2200 in Bartlett each filed roughly 70 evictions for every 100 living units in their complexes.
Some top evictors receive tax breaks from the city and county
Not every tenant with an eviction filed against them ends up being removed from their home. Sometimes, renters are able to secure help from rental assistance programs or legal aid groups to keep them in their units or give them time to move out voluntarily.
But the Eviction Lab’s list still provides a snapshot of some of the city’s most aggressive evictors — including those who receive financial incentives from the city and county.
According to county parcel data, nearly one-third of Memphis top 100 evictors are PILOT recipients — a program that offers property tax discounts to landlords in order to encourage low-income housing development. In 2025, 29 of the top 100 evictors received benefits from this program, including five of the top 10 properties.
All but one of these properties received PILOT discounts from the city’s Health, Education and Housing Facilities Board, which oversees tax incentives for low-income housing. The board did not respond to a request for comment on the evictions filed by its PILOT recipient properties.
One additional apartment complex, Link Apartments on Broad Avenue, got a PILOT discount from the city’s Industrial Development Board, which typically issues tax incentives for businesses.
PILOT properties on the list filed for evictions in 2025 at a slightly higher rate than those that didn’t. PILOT recipients accounted for 29% of the properties on the top evictors list, but made 33% of the list’s 9,781 eviction filings.
Who owns the top evicting properties in Memphis?
None of the complexes on the top 100 evictors list is listed as owned by an individual — a common phenomenon in the world of rental housing. Instead, they are owned by companies with names like “Monticello Associates LLC” and “Mid America Apartments LP.”
The corporate ownership of rental housing can make it difficult to identify who actually owns a property. Greenbrook at Shelby Farms, for instance, is owned by a company called Arium Shelby Farms Owner LLC, which appears to be owned by Carroll Holdings, an Atlanta-based real estate investment company. Carroll Holdings did not respond to a request for comment on its eviction policies.
More than two-thirds of the county’s top 100 evicting properties are owned by out-of-state entities, according to owner addresses listed in the Shelby County Register of Deeds. Only 31 are owned by entities with addresses in Tennessee.
Seventeen of the properties are owned by companies with New York addresses, making it the top location for out-of-state property ownership. Florida and Pennsylvania are home to six property owners each, while Utah, New Jersey and Nevada are home to five each.
Ownership can also be obscured by government policies. The Health, Education and Housing Facilities Board is listed as the “owner” of the 28 properties it subsidizes through tax incentives, despite not actually owning any of them.
At another complex, which accepts Section 8 housing vouchers, the owner is listed as the Memphis Housing Authority, despite the owner’s address being in Pennsylvania. The challenges in determining a property’s true owner can also obscure who to hold accountable when tenants are evicted excessively or unjustly.
Are you facing eviction from one of the apartment complexes in these graphics? MLK50 wants to hear from you. Contact the author of this story by emailing natalie.wallington@mlk50.com or messaging nataliew.901 on Signal.
Natalie Wallington is the housing reporter for MLK50: Justice Through Journalism. Email her at natalie.wallington@mlk50.com.
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