You may not know him, but chances are you or someone you know does business with him. Terry Shockley’s company, Property Management Concepts — also known as Eugene Rentals — is the second-largest property management company in the university student housing market.

In its 15th year of operations, PMC rents out about 3,500 beds to university students, roughly 14 percent of the 24,548 students enrolled in fall of 2013.

Shockley, 61, frequently smiles and is polite and to-the-point. He answers questions completely and succinctly. He’s also observant — a trait that he attributes to the success of his business.

Kim Bell, who has worked in accounting for Shockley’s company since 2006, said that he is honest and inspires loyalty among employees.

“He’s generous to his employees,” Bell said. “He treats all of us very well.”

She also mentioned that he has several hobbies.

“He’s a NASCAR freak,” she said, jokingly, adding that he is an avid outdoorsman as well.

But Shockley doesn’t let on to any of this. On his business card he lists himself as Terry S Shockley, Broker/Property Manager. Nowhere on his business card or website does he mention that he is the founder and sole owner of his company.

“I am an employee of Property Management Concepts,” he said, smiling.

After graduating Creswell High School in 1970, Shockley bumped around a bit—finding work first at a local steel company, then spending three-and-a-half years running an Italian sandwich shop before moving up to Alaska where he worked briefly in construction and later opened up a Golden Skillet and Dairy Queen.

“The Kodiak Dairy Queen was a terrific success,” Shockley said.

By the spring of 1985, however, the soft-serve entrepreneur was ready for a change. He moved back to Eugene and started in a new direction, one that would become his career: real estate and property management.

After working briefly for two different realty firms, Shockley, along with two other partners, started Excel Realty. Two years later, in 1989, Shockley sold his share of the company and founded PMC.

It wasn’t until 2000, after his third son graduated high school, that Shockley began to devote more time to growing his company.

First, he hired a web developer — his first full-time employee. His investment in a website soon began paying off.

“We grew at more than 10 percent per year,” Shockley said.

In 2005, PMC expanded from single family homes to student housing.

“We had owners who owned some property who wanted us to extend our management into that area,” Shockley said.

Not long after PMC’s move into the market, Dan Neal, owner of Paradigm Properties, was looking for a property management company to take over a couple of his campus properties.

“A trusted friend and banker gave a very strong recommendation about Terry,” Neal said. “I decided to give him a try.”

The partnership paid off. Nearly nine years later, Neal has six properties that PMC manages. Neal is one of the more than 250 other property owners who have management contracts with PMC, which takes a percentage of the rent in return for managing and advertising the properties. 

Beyond student housing, which Shockley said represents only about one half of the business the company does, PMC rents out about 800 homes in the greater Eugene area.

“I don’t think I ever had the plan that we’ll be one person here and in 2014 be a 17-person business. It just kind of happened that way,” Shockley said.

PMC’s growth in student housing also mirrors the rapid expansion of the niche market.

According to real estate appraiser Corey Dingman, by the end of the 2014 school year more than 4,500 bedrooms will have been added to the west and south university neighborhoods since fall 2007.

“Developers saw the university grow by four or five thousand students and they started putting capital in place to take advantage of it,” Tim Duy, professor in economics at the university, said.

“So far it’s student demand that’s been primarily driving the rebound in construction activity,” Duy said.

Some property management companies purchase property while others, such as PMC, rely on individual property owners or developers to acquire units for rental.

The strategy means less profit for the management company, but also less risk as well.

“The owner gets the blunt of it,” Shockley said. Many property owners use rent to pay the mortgage of a unit—without renters, owners are still on the hook to keep up regular payments to banks.

For businesses involved in student housing, the university’s enrollment numbers foreshadow market growth.

“The unknown is the enrollment numbers at the University of Oregon,” Shockley said.

“We’re anticipating next year not having as strong of growth as they want to see.”

Recent years have seen a spate of new student housing — beginning with Duck Village near Autzen stadium and more recently projects like 13th and Olive and The Patterson.

The challenge is as student enrollment at the university levels off, the market may shift from a seller’s market to a buyer’s market.

“You went through abut 20 years where whatever the amount you had were rented,” Shockley said. “That vacancy factor was zero.”

According to Shockley, the vacancy rate (or vacancy factor, in property management parlance) for 2013 was three to four percent—a first for the market.

“Looking ahead to the 2014 school year it is very hard to know what to expect until we see enrollment numbers from the university,” Shockley said.

Despite the challenges, his plan for PMC will remain the same—continue to invest in technology to better communicate with students (PMC has an employee dedicated to managing social networking and uses a text-messaging system that will text potential renters with details if a new property match is found), listen and respond to student’s concerns and get involved with property owners as early as possible in the design of a new unit.

Working with property owners prior to the beginning of construction allows PMC to make design recommendations that can give the unit the best chance of being rented out.

“If we’ve been invited to a party early, we’re probably going to be fairly successful,” Shockley said.

Paradigm Properties currently has one such project, The Patterson, coming onto the market with PMC this fall. The 100-unit complex, located on the southeast corner of 13th and Patterson has been under construction for nearly a year and cost Neal’s business upwards of $10 million to develop and build.

“As we go through different iterations of schematic design, we forward them to Terry Shockley so he can comment,” Neal said.

When The Patterson is completed, it will feature larger bedrooms, large windows and USB outlets on plugs—all features that were due in part to Shockley’s comments.

Architect Paul Dustrud’s firm, Dustrud Architecture, designed the project and explained the strategy when building premium products such as The Patterson (rent starts at $995 for a studio) was attracting not only students, but young professionals as well.

“Some of the graduates might not leave [after graduating.]” Dustrud said. “Having newer, high-quality apartment buildings could make them stay.”

And staying, if Shockley can do anything about it, is precisely the plan.