Women in HOUSING
Creating a Special Niche
for women in the housing economy
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s we continue to evolve and reinvent new ideas and strategies in addressing new issues, we must be a leader, mentor and collaboratively work together to strengthen our industry and professional work environment. As many women in the housing economy work tirelessly living commission to commission with a significant pay decrease, it is imperative we expand the awareness and access for opportunities to retain quality, talented women professionals.
As we look at the bare bone basics of real estate, there are two major components: 1) Transferring title of a property or asset 2) Managing a property or asset
With numerous variations within these components, the overall essence is having a contract to perform work. Our goal as a real estate agent, lender, escrow officer, contractor and associated services is to build relationships to capture first time clients with repeat and referral business as we contribute and engage with our communities to grow our business portfolio with extended outreach. As the market has taken a large swing in volume of properties being sold to being managed, we have to look at our business model and ask, "Are we passionate on being in the
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industry?" Margaret Kelly, CEO of RE/MAX, recently stated, "The low inventory... sure, it's an issue and we need to look at it, but we're still talking about 4.9-5 million sales. With that many properties available for sale, agents should be asking themselves, 'What's really going on in the market?’" As there are many variations within real estate, a lender, title and escrow officer can still produce income with a refinance of a home, while most income for agents is derived from the transfer of a property besides property management. With the amount of properties transferring ownership and the incredible corresponding amount of business being contracted, we are still seeing professionals leaving the business in droves through retirement, technology issues, and not being able to deal with the new demands of increased work load per contract and compliance issues. How do we create more opportunities and experiences to retain talented women professionals in the housing economy? Growing your existing business and expanding your business portfolio outside "the box" is essential to staying competitive and financially sound. Within the industry to help with education and awareness, NAWRB created the Women In Housing Financial Fitness Road Show. By taking the elements of two specialized markets--women in housing and women in government-- individual to corporate and govern-