Maxwell Drever – Innovator | Leader

With that said, he is well known for his ability to find value and control risk. His $3.2 billion in lifetime deal experience, covering 20 primary markets, confirms this fact. His successes have featured stories covering his life and career in news outlets such as The Globe and Mail, Bloomberg News, Forbes Magazine, Reuters, The Financial Post, and The Wall Street Journal.

As a child, Maxwell was, in his words, “an anemic, asthmatic wimp with ADHD and a mischievous streak.” One of the first outlets he found to apply his boundless energy was founding a mushroom farm in the basement of his family home in Geneva, IL. However, this enterprise was short-lived because his parents began objecting to the extreme means he went to show his hungry young mushrooms loving care. (they objected to the manure he brought into the house). Nevertheless, he pursued his childhood entrepreneurial dreams by founding a gardening business and a service that painted house numbers on curbs. If you asked Maxwell today where his philanthropic passions for assisting the health and education of underserved youth originated, he would point to the many challenges he faced during his boyhood.

Maxwell Drever attended Lake Forest Academy during his high school years. Here, he excelled at sports, captaining his school’s football, wrestling, and track teams. The leadership skills he acquired at Lake Forest established the foundations for his future business success. Maxwell went on to attend the University of Illinois, graduating with a B.A. in Finance. While initially planning to study accounting and become a CPA, he found himself drawn to Real Estate and the concept that it was possible to work outside of a corporate environment (circa the 1960s) and accumulate great wealth.

Maxwell found himself in the San Francisco Bay area in the late 1960s. It was here that he began making his first real estate investments. One of his initial ventures took place while working as a Bay Area Real Estate Agent. He took note of a glut of neglected apartment buildings in Sausalito and smelled an opportunity. Spurred to action, he found nine partners to join him in putting up $5,000 each to purchase a dilapidated triplex. He and one partner renovated the building together, then subdivided and sold the land. He and his investors made a 400 percent return.

His career in responsible investing took shape in early 1970’s Seattle with the transformation of 17 troubled complexes into desirable apartment communities for families with workforce-level incomes. By the 1980s, Maxwell had become one of the largest buyers of distressed properties in the nation, and in the aftermath of the Banking and Thrift crisis, one of the RTC’s go-to buyers of multifamily housing. By the 1990s, Maxwell Drever was amongst the largest buyers of apartment complexes in Texas and one of Houston’s biggest landlords. 

Maxwell is a doer, never shying away from investments that meet his precise specifications. And when he invests, he is fully committed to creating something unique. The 170,000 apartments he has successfully owned or built across the nation are a testament to the talents of this remarkable man.

Maxwell is the proud father of seven wonderful and talented children (his sons Noah and Galen have followed him into the Real Estate business). He is also an exceptionally active senior. Amongst his favorite activities are hiking, biking, nature photography, horticulture, paddle-boarding, weightlifting, and of course, the activity for which he is most famous, swimming year-round in San Francisco Bay without the aid of a wetsuit. 

Maxwell serves as Chairman Emeritus for both Drever Capital Management and Drever Atelier Partners. In his ninth decade, he retains his passion for assisting the health and education of underserved youth and bringing awareness to all issues concerning eldercare health. Finally, Maxwell Drever continues to exude excitement as he continues his quest to grow the Drever Legacy.