In a profession dominated by women, women are underrepresented at the very top, a disparity highlighted by executives at HousingWire’s annual conference in Austin, Texas.
Women make up a majority—63%—of the membership of the National Association of REALTORS®.
In contrast, roughly 26.5% of real estate’s CEO, C-suite and president roles in Swanepoel Power 200’s ranking are held by women. NAR’s Nykia Wright and Shannon McGahn were among those ranked. (Read more about Wright’s conference session here.)
Trailblazing real estate and mortgage leaders took the stage at “The Gathering” to share tangible business tips and lessons that continue to propel their careers.
“Females make 91% of housing decisions, but yet we’re not represented in the boardrooms of homebuilding companies,” said Jennifer Clarke Johnson, founder of Dallas-Fort Worth-based homebuilding brand Olivia Clarke Homes in 2020. “So, I felt just by the fact of being a female and understanding what our consumer wanted, I could bring something different to the table.”
The company’s name originates from her daughters’ middle names. Clarke Johnson shared how she was nervous having her company cast as so obviously female, especially compared to legacy, generational competition.
“But I will say the market has received it with open arms, and actually, it’s brought us a lot of business because it’s different,” she said, recalling overhearing a new sales prospect say, “I know you’re female owned and that’s why I called you.”
“I think the consumer naturally gravitated to that because they felt seen, and they felt like the homes were going to be different,” Clarke Johnson said.
For example, Clarke Johnson said by heading up the company, she’s been able to challenge tradition, like building homes without formal dining rooms—space she felt could be reallocated to better fit families’ needs. Instead, her homes offer more generous kitchen nooks and multipurpose islands so families can sit across from each other rather than shoulder to shoulder.
Related: Perspective: Why Hiring Women Is a Smart Investment
eXp Realty’s Wendy Forsythe: Go for It at Any Age, With Any Background
At a one-hour session dubbed “Women of Influence Forum,” Wendy Forsythe, chief marketing officer at eXp Realty, started her address by introducing the audience of real estate and mortgage professionals to a woman named Anne Boden.
After earning her way into the upper echelon of a bank in the United Kingdom, Boden left her company and at the age of 54 launched Britain’s first digital bank, Starling Bank. It’s valued at more than a billion pounds today.
“We’ve been in those places where our ideas have not been given the full merit, or worse, our ideas have been taken by somebody else—and I see that your heads [are] shaking,” Forsythe said to the audience. “... Yet, we have still showed up.”
Forsythe encouraged the audience to not let Boden serve as an outlier.
“Each of us has to take that responsibility for changing the game,” Forsythe said. “... Let’s build our own dang tables ... build your own room, build your own table and start to build businesses and initiatives and ideas ... that will get bigger, that will grow from there.”
Don’t let your degree or area of expertise dictate what you do next, she encouraged, citing a study that found the majority of female founders launched a business in a completely new field.
Optimal Blue’s Sara Holtz: Using AI to Control the Chaos
Sara Holtz, chief marketing officer at Optimal Blue, sometimes feels like a “chaos coordinator.” She’s found that artificial intelligence has helped her create order in a world of never-ending decision-making: from crafting marketing copy to determining the best flight for an upcoming trip.
She recalled how she pivoted her skillset early in her career to embrace the adoption of the internet.
“The lesson I learned back then stands true today: Technology transforms channels; it doesn’t replace human value,” Holtz said. That thinking has allowed Holtz to embrace AI as her “chief of staff,” by refining the unpolished and disjointed into coherency and action items.
In essence, the age-old adage “work smarter, not harder” has never been easier.
Tampa Bay Real Estate’s Corina Lessa: Leadership Starts with Visibility
Corina Lessa, owner and broker associate at Tampa Bay Key Real Estate, said she found her niche among the exploding Brazilian community, a demographic she served 20 years prior as a travel agent. Lessa is originally from Brazil.
Over two decades, she says the small but mighty community grew, with an estimated 20,000 Brazilians living in Tampa today. Lessa says she’s worked hard to help put Tampa on the map through social media.
“I joined the board of the Brazilian Consulate in Miami,” she said. “I became an educator. I became a storyteller. I became a voice between Tampa and Brazil and what happened is that I was building trust.”
Lessa explained that leaders in real estate must be decoders, interpreting the selling and buying process. To prove her point, she began speaking in Portuguese.
“Real estate is not the first language of the consumer, and just how I had to translate that for you,” she said, “that’s what the leaders must do today.”
Related: Celebrating Women in Real Estate Leadership
