minorities in commercial real estate
Many firms, including, Similarly, Jennifer Bernell, director of development at, Peebles — who first entered the NYC market in 2008 after accumulating a $4 billion portfolio in Washington, D.C., and Miami — and El Ad are now finally moving forward on the Tribeca site. She grew up in a small village in the South Korean province of Kyungki-do, where her father had worked as a livestock broker. But opting out of some of these cookies may have an effect on your browsing experience. The lack of diversity in commercial real estate is a threat to the future of the industry. “If you’ve been in the marketplace and got a firm you took over from your dad, who took it over from your granddad, it’s going to influence your access to capital [because of] people’s interpretations of who you are.”. It’s just culturally embedded in the industry.”. Try again later. Many of the bankers have grown indifferent to inclusion if they are not forced to do something legally.”. Add to that a slow turnover at the upper echelons, and what you have is a very steep climb. Also, over the past 3 years over 10 JPMC employees have participated and graduated from REAP academies. On one of the mornings, a psychologist named Amy Cuddy stood before the female audience, teaching them to perform a Wonder Woman-like “power pose” to build confidence. The cold terms of employment harken back to the age of trade apprenticeships: Brokers are typically paid nothing or “staked” an annual salary that they must pay back once they start making deals. Peebles — who first entered the NYC market in 2008 after accumulating a $4 billion portfolio in Washington, D.C., and Miami — and El Ad are now finally moving forward on the Tribeca site. McIntyre: We presently are in discussions with several organizations to create strategic alliances which will enable REAP to maintain a consistent presence in multiple markets. Five hundred thousand dollars is insignificant, meaningless to me and my balance sheet. "Being both a minority … The benefit rivals that of elite tech companies in going far beyond what most private companies provide. Minority Women In Commercial Real Estate. In some cases, it’s a matter of passing the family torch. Reid: What new initiatives or partnerships are you creating to spread the word about REAP? On the commercial brokerage side, women and minorities are often weeded out at the front door, according to many. NAIOP provides industry networking and education, and advocates for … Two years later, she was named vice chair. “They are overlooked. Inside The Best Designed House In The U.K. How The Fall Of The Berlin Wall Sparked A Property Boom, Luc Besson Taken To Court For Refusing Hunters To Shoot Deers On His Land. Karim Hutson, a black affordable-housing developer who works on projects in Harlem, said that for minorities, experience can also be used to mean “where you come from and who you know.”, “[It] becomes a big word…to really [suggest] a lot of different meanings,” he said. In 2013, Peebles and his partner, the Israeli-based American real estate company El Ad Group, purchased a 13-story building at 108 Leonard Street from the city for $160 million. At the time, the Tribeca property was described as the single largest building ever sold by the city, and Peebles called it a “barrier breaker.”. JRT Realty Group, Inc. was established in 1996 as a woman-owned, full-service commercial real estate services firm to address industry-wide supplier diversity initiatives. As a woman in any male-dominated industry, you learn to expect to be treated differently at times, she said. However, over the years, those fears subsided. “Almost everybody knew somebody,” she said. “Unfortunately, I think, that’s not the typical statistic.”, She added: “It’s not enough for people to talk about diversity and meritocracy in the workplace or say that women are on an even playing field. “When you go to a meeting and you bring four white males to the table and the company has African-Americans, Asian women and two white guys, they look at you like you’re nuts,” Reingold said. “This is not for the faint of heart.”. And that balance extends to the C-suite, where there are currently women CEOs — Dottie Herman, Pam Liebman and Diane Ramirez — helming the city’s three biggest brokerages, Douglas Elliman, the Corcoran Group and Halstead Property, respectively. Minorities who do succeed often come from groups that have wealth or are fueling a boom. A few others have ascended the ranks at big firms, such as Extell’s Raizy Haas, Forest City Ratner’s Susi Yu and Lend Lease’s Melissa Burch. That may be true everywhere, but experience can often pose a cruel catch-22 for women and minorities in real estate: They don’t have enough of it because these jobs were historically reserved for white men. McIntyre: REAP's strategic plan includes: more local programming; offering modified academies that provide greater depth in specific disciplines like development or property management; a structured mentorship program; and more networking across markets. The number of minorities working in commercial real estate is woefully low, experts say, and efforts are emerging in central Ohio to address the issue. Take a look at our current listings to see if any our available interests meet your investment needs. June 18, 2014 "There are so many people who can't even imagine a career in real estate," local developer Yaromir Steiner said. Cedric Matheny (Atlanta, GA) is Principal and Vice at President T.Dallas Smith & Company.He specializes in Tenant and Buyer representation services for corporate users of office, industrial, retail, and land. “You not only need nerves of steel, you have to live on the edge,” she said. "Networking and learning w/ minority talent in the commercial real estate game. Toby Moskovits and Abby Hamlin are among them. One female real estate attorney, who asked not to be named, said she lost out on a client who felt that she couldn’t be aggressive enough as a woman. “You can’t cry or be a whiner,” said Adelaide Polsinelli, an investment sales broker at Eastern Consolidated. There are currently at least three pending discrimination lawsuits filed by women against major real estate companies in New York [see sidebar on page 45]. “You don’t negotiate with reality,” Rose said. Hwang, who left Cushman in 2015 to head the investment sales team at Meridian Capital, stands out because she is both Asian and female. She said the behavior, while unintentional, is revealing. Several years ago, as part of its hiring and recruitment efforts, Jonathan Rose Companies introduced a selection committee that considers diversity in tandem with ability. (Only one individual in the ranking was a woman — Katherine Farley, developer, Within the group of owners and managers on REBNY’s board of governors, there are only two minorities — Bernard Warren of Harlem-based developer and brokerage, a lot of different meanings,” he said. Kramer saw a chance to repair a longstanding inequity in families. Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. Meanwhile, REBNY’s choice of Banks as its president was widely seen as a big leap forward in the industry. Women may dominate the industry numerically, but they are still in the minority in the lucrative world of commercial real estate and at the CEO level of … “You do it because it’s good business.”. “But there’s some areas where there’s some subjectivity. hundreds of talented minorities giving up their weekend to learn, strategize, network and partner. In many ways, it was an unexpected fit. He told her, “I need a prick,” she said. Dawanna Williams — who founded the Manhattan-based Dabar Development Partners in 2003 after working as a commercial real estate lawyer — said banks tend to be “less generous” with women- and-minority-led development firms. Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. And of course, Hillary Clinton’s failed presidential campaign, But in many ways, NYC real estate has always operated by its own rules, and according to those interviewed, diversity is still an uncomfortable topic. In an interview with. She was 24, recruited into the company’s career development program, which was designed for recent college grads. Maryann Reid: What problem is REAP solving with its program? Inherent diversity relates to built-in characteristics, such as age, gender, race, and disability. For women, it means that critical companywide policies that arguably impact them disproportionately — such as compensation structure, recruitment, work culture and family-friendly benefits — are largely left in the hands of men. Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own. And among 80,000 licensed real estate appraisers in the U.S., less than 2,000 are minorities, according to Don Kelly, vice president for public affairs at the Chicago-based Appraisal Institute. Beyond those two, we have seven other markets that we've targeted for expansion over the next 5 years. Among the city’s eight largest commercial brokerages (by number of employees), men on average make up at least 73 percent of brokers, according to a TRD gender analysis of names on state licensing data. I should have been able to say, “This is not acceptable,” stand up and walk out, but instead I relied on Bruce to do that for me.”. In the end, she added, “I think we all speak the same language. The Real Estate Executive Council, a professional trade association for executives of color in commercial real estate, runs internships for minority high schoolers. “The whole question is about access to capital, access to those networks,” said Lyneir Richardson, executive director of the Center for Urban Entrepreneurship and Economic Development at Rutgers University. “It’s not good about change, and it’s not good about outsiders.”. All rights reserved © 2021 The Real Deal is a registered Trademark of Korangy Publishing Inc. And in August, Apple released statistics showing that 27 percent of its U.S. hires came from underrepresented minority groups — a 6 percentage point jump from two years ago. REAP supplements the academy with events in each of our local markets which promote networking, continued education in CRE topics, mentorship and professional development. With the enthusiastic support of industry leadership, Project REAP—the Real Estate Associate Program —is now widely acknowledged to be the most successful diversity initiative in the commercial real estate industry. Kendrick Harris, a black real estate attorney at the law firm Goldstein Hall who heads the Council of Urban Real Estate, said diversity has become “an ugly code word in the place of affirmative action.”, “The simple answer throughout the industry, especially from those with the most influence, is that this is a business, and we don’t get into social issues,” he said. Yet while women have forged a path to prominent roles in the industry, the same has not been true for minority men. To find out, Unsurprisingly, we found a tale of two sectors. “It’s like frat life. Gilmartin recalled a meeting 10 years ago when she accompanied Bruce Ratner — then the firm’s CEO — to negotiate a lease renewal with the head of a finance company that was a tenant in a Forest City building. We are having some technical difficulties. Slights, she said, such as people failing to acknowledge her or shake her hand, made her blame her gender, race and relative youth. “It was a run-of-the-mill lawsuit. I researched the leadership of today’s commercial real estate corporate landscape to find that the CEOs of the three largest publicly traded commercial real estate firms are all white men. By Angela Sadang | May 29, 2019. In general, female developers are few and far between. “You burn a lot of fuel when you’re blazing your own trail.”. Tammy Jones, chair of the Real Estate Executive Council (REEC)—a trade association working to promote the interests of minority executives in commercial real estate—and CEO and co-founder of Basis Investment Group, LLC, is trying to make that long-overdue representation a reality. Within this environment, past deals or “experience” is often used as the litmus test, both for raising capital and winning deals. More than any other practice, sources singled out the commission-based structure in brokerage as an explanation for why the commercial industry fails to develop a pipeline of talented minorities and women. Last February, they secured $411 million in financing for a 144-unit luxury condo conversion. Under his company’s plan, all new parents, fathers included, receive three months of paid leave. McIntyre: REAP's strategic plan includes: more local programming; offering modified academies that provide greater depth in specific disciplines like development or property management; a structured mentorship program; and more networking across markets. “The culture is closed,” said Gabriel Silverstein, who heads the New York-based capital markets brokerage Angelic Real Estate. In an interview with TRD last year, Bertha Lewis, president of a NYC-based think tank, the Black Institute, called the appointment “a supernova.”. In 2002, after 18 years of rising in the ranks at Edward S. Gordon Company — later Insignia/ESG Inc. — Tighe was appointed the head of CBRE’s tri-state operations. More and more, women and minorities within industries are speaking out. Beyond home mortgages, a 2010 federal study showed that minority-owned firms with annual gross revenue under $500,000 are denied loans about three times as often as their white counterparts. Unlike the competition, we are a 100% owned black owned brokerage and we partner with other top brokerages and black real estate agents in every city. For full functionality of this site it is necessary to enable JavaScript. Gilmartin said the male executive treated her as if she were being interviewed for a job, peppering her with questions about her experience level. In this two-part series, I will discuss real estate holding companies and describe the use of minority discounts (also known as the discount for lack of control, or DLOC) in the valuation of partial, non-controlling interests in entities holding real estate as … According to the Pew Research Center, by 2055, whites will no longer hold the majority in the U.S. Women, meanwhile, are grabbing an increasing share of the educated workforce. And barring a major MC shakeup, it’s safe to say that New York real estate is not about to have a Chris Rock moment. “The minority gap is huge but the gender gap is rather sizable,” said Hurst. Other than D.C., and New York City, REAP has chapters in Atlanta, Chicago, Los Angeles, Cleveland, Columbus, Dallas and Kansas City. For firms with annual revenues of $500,000 or higher, the loan rejection rate was almost twice as high. Round-up of top news and topics for each of the following cities: Editorially-curated headlines and news to know for the following areas: The numbers behind office leases, retail, sales and financing. We use cookies on our website to give you the most relevant experience by remembering your preferences and repeat visits. So why exactly has NYC real estate been so slow to adapt to the city’s changing demographics, and how do developers, executives and brokers, especially women and minorities, feel about it? Residential real estate, unlike commercial, has a roughly even number of male and female brokers. “I knew nobody.”. Because above you are all men,” said Reingold, who sued Cushman for gender and age discrimination in 2013 after getting passed over for a promotion. “I know in my heart that the days of being the only woman at the negotiating table are over.”. © 2021 Forbes Media LLC. Commercial Real Estate . High-level women executives at development companies include those who were born into family-run firms, such as Amy Rose, Helena Durst, Samantha Rudin, Veronica Mainetti and Michele Medaglia. Greenwood Village, CO – Eric Nesbitt, of the Nesbitt Commercial Group and principal brokers Alec Wynne, Paul Washington, Carmon Hicks were featured in the Colorado Real Estate Journal, Diversity Essential To Industry’s Future discussing the lack of minority representation in commercial real estate. MaryAnne Gilmartin, who was named president and CEO of Forest City Ratner in 2013 after 19 years at the company, is perhaps the industry’s most prominent female development executive. REAP's mission is to advance diversity, equity and inclusion in the commercial real estate industry through education, mentorship, and partnerships. Once there she joined a roughly 25-person team anchored by seasoned veterans, Richard Baxter, Scott Latham, Ron Cohen and Jon Caplan. He recalled one instance in which a lender grilled him over a $500,000 lawsuit a broker had filed against him 15 years earlier. Cushman & Wakefield, which has more brokers than any other commercial firm in the city with 486, also has the highest share of men at 73 percent, while CBRE, with 462 brokers, is at least 70 percent male. “That’s not a testament to my company’s abilities as much as it is an indictment of the unfairness of the system,” said Peebles, who is contemplating a run for mayor. But he said the advantage has faded amid the rise of multinational companies. Women, meanwhile, hold only a 35 percent share of those jobs on the whole. Many women TRD spoke to — at least ones who’ve made it to the top of the industry — said they accept real estate’s male-dominated culture as a fact of life. Chris Okada, a second-generation Japanese-American commercial real estate executive, said that back in the 1970s, when his father was starting out as a retail broker, a big key to his success was his ability to connect with huge clients like Toyota and Panasonic to place them in premier buildings like 9 West 57th Street and the Seagram Building. Likewise, a review of the websites of the city’s top commercial brokerages shows a consistent scarcity of women at the top, reflecting the much-talked-about C-suite gap that plagues corporate America. Faith Hope Consolo, the chairman of Elliman’s retail leasing and sales division, said that while she was in a financial position to attempt a career in brokerage, not everyone is. Williams, who is black, said that could be because those companies tend to be smaller and therefore riskier to lend to. In fact, black and Hispanic players seeking to raise capital through traditional sources like banks face a legacy of institutional racism that has effectively made it harder for them to own property, let alone break into development. He also advises clients on-site selection, real estate investment, and real estate development. He now responds by saying he’s not on the selection committee. Today, many of New York’s biggest real estate players hail from countries such as Iran, Syria, Israel and China. “I think the lack of mentorship is critical,” said Nesbitt. NAIOP, the Commercial Real Estate Development Association, is an organization for developers, owners and related professionals in office, industrial and mixed-use real estate. Specifically, a 2018 graduate of the New York academy joined Nuveen (formerly TIAA Real Estate) as an Asset Management Investment Analyst in Washington, DC. Almost every leading financial institution in the Chicago area is represented in Notable Minorities in Commercial Banking. Its CEO founder, Jonathan Rose, who himself belongs to a real estate dynasty (he and Amy Rose are cousins), said he frequently receives calls from well-connected industry colleagues asking if he can hire one of their friends or relatives. Many firms, including Cushman & Wakefield, among the top three largest commercial brokerages in the world, declined to participate or have any of their brokers interviewed in this story. Bartholomew: In one of our recent classes, we had one candidate who applied for the New York City academy, but currently lived in California. “It’s burn and churn,” said one woman at a prominent New York brokerage who asked not to be named. Many pointed to these policies as signs that change is seeping, albeit slowly, into the industry. “Bruce really drew the line. “In the pre-internet era in New York City commercial real estate, that was 1,000 percent the reason why our family was very successful,” said Okada, who now runs his own commercial brokerage, Okada & Company. The gap translates into pay. “You don’t want to put someone in the position of being the sole flag-bearer of the issue,” said Goldstein Hall’s Harris. In the end, she said, it isn’t about altruism. Many don’t make it. Launched in 1997 in Washington, D.C., by then president of real estate at Giant Foods, Mike Bush, REAP connects minority talent to a thriving, multibillion dollar commercial real estate sector by answering one simple question: "How do I get in?" “Diversity is reality.”. These cookies do not store any personal information. Unsurprisingly, we found a tale of two sectors. “Discrimination is not intentional. To find out, The Real Deal talked to more than 70 players of all ranks — men as well as women, whites as well as minorities — from a cross-section of the industry, including residential sales, development, commercial leasing, investment sales and law. But the responses fell short. Thrown into a bullpen, freshman office leasing and investment sales brokers have about a year to learn the ropes, honing their pitches by cold-calling as many as 50 to 70 people a day. Reid: What other efforts is REAP doing to connect with minority professionals? Early in her career, she was more self-conscious.