Steadfast Income REIT Announces New President and Expansion of Board to Include Two New Independent Directors

Irvine, Calif.—Steadfast Income REIT, Inc. announced today that Ella Shaw Neyland has assumed the role of president for the public, non-traded multifamily REIT, and that the company’s board of directors is now comprised of seven members with the appointment of two new independent directors, Kerry D. Vandell and Ned W. Brines.

Ella Shaw Neyland succeeds Rodney F. Emery, who will remain chairman and CEO of the company’s board. Neyland will remain a member of the board, but tendered her resignation as chairperson of its Audit Committee, a position required to be held by an independent board member, to assume the new role.

Neyland’s distinguished real estate and financial industry experience extends back nearly 30 years and includes three years as executive vice president, treasurer and investor relations officer of the publicly traded UDR, Inc. (NYSE:UDR), where she was responsible for capital market transactions, banking relationships and presentations to investors and Wall Street analysts. While at UDR, Neyland served as a voting member of UDR’s Investment Committee that approved the repositioning of over $3 billion of investments.

Additionally, she spent four years as a financial advisor and an owner of a private real estate acquisition and development company where she advised the company in the acquisition of 43 medical properties with over 2 million square feet of space in 13 states and advised the affiliate company in the acquisition of 8,300 apartments in 29 communities.

Simultaneously, to address the growing needs of the company, Steadfast announced that its five-member board will expand to seven members and that Dr. Kerry D. Vandell and Ned. W. Brines have been appointed as independent directors.

Dr. Vandell will succeed Neyland as the Audit Committee chair and is the dean’s professor of finance and director for the Center for Real Estate at the Paul Merage School of Business at the University of California, Irvine. Dr. Vandell has researched and consulted widely in the areas of real estate investment, urban/real estate/environmental economics, mortgage finance, housing economics and policy, and valuation theory. Vandell holds a doctorate in Urban Studies and Planning from MIT, a master’s from Harvard University and both a bachelor’s and master’s from Rice University. He also serves on the board of directors of Shopoff Properties Trust, Inc., a public non-traded real estate investment trust specializing in land investments.

Ned Brines is the chief investment officer for the CitizenTrust Wealth Management and Trust division of Citizens Business Bank, as well as the founder and chief investment officer of Montelena Asset Management, LLC, a California-based investment advisor. Over the past 18 years, Brines’ roles have included serving as the chief investment officer for a Los Angeles-based registered investment advisor firm and as a senior portfolio manager both for a small cap growth fund with $1.6 billion in assets under management (AUM) and for a mid cap mutual fund and large cap private client business with over $19 billion AUM. Prior to completing his MBA at the University of Southern California, Brines spent six years as an investment banker focused on mergers and acquisitions. He is also on the investment committee for the City of Hope.