As a senior executive specializing in commercial real estate acquisitions, Kelly Alcaraz has over the years gotten used to being one of the only women in the room.
“It used to be if I came across another woman in my job it would be like, 'Yeah!'" said Alcaraz, a vice president at Nearon Enterprises, a private investment firm in the San Francisco Bay Area.
That has gradually changed, she acknowledged, as more women have joined an industry that has traditionally been dominated by men. Data from the Commercial Real Estate Women Network, an advocacy and networking group for female professionals in the sector, showed that women occupied just 37% of the workforce at the start of this decade.
RETS Associates, a nationwide real estate executive search firm, reported a slight increase in the proportion of female candidates it placed in commercial real estate roles from 41% women candidates in the first quarter of 2022 to 46% women candidates in the first quarter of 2024. Moreover, it found that the number of diverse candidates, including women and people of color, increased from 48% in 2023 to 53% in 2024.
But as the world marks International Women’s Month, highlighted by a dedicated day on Saturday, industry professionals stressed women still face steep advancement barriers in commercial real estate, a sector where most of the leaders and owners are still men. The 2020 CREW survey of about 3,000 real estate industry professionals found just 9% of so-called C-suite roles at the highest rungs of companies were held by women.
Since the CREW survey, several women have joined the top levels of some of the world's largest commercial property firms. In May 2023, real estate services firm Cushman & Wakefield named Michelle MacKay as its new CEO, and she took the reins two months later. In July 2021, CBRE, the world's largest real estate services firm by revenue, tapped Emma Giamartino to serve as its global chief financial officer. And one of the co-heads of Blackstone's real estate group is Kathleen McCarthy, sharing the position with Nadeem Meghji.
Still, Kent Elliott, a principal at RETS, said the findings of the 2024 survey indicates that there hasn't been significant change in advancement to the top ranks.
“The commercial real estate industry has made some progress in advancing diversity in hiring and executive leadership,” Elliott said. “But it’s nowhere near what it should be. If you were to pick a handful of [real estate investment trusts] at random and look at their landing pages, you will see a bunch of mostly white male faces.”
Work-life balance
RETS conducts an annual survey of financial analysts in commercial real estate as a common entry point into the industry on their career priorities and workplace experiences, among other subjects.
It found women were more likely to leave a job because of the nature of the work, the culture of the firm or dissatisfaction with their bosses, while they placed less emphasis than their male counterparts on job titles and compensation.
“These factors weigh as highly as growth potential and more heavily than compensation,” concluded the RETS survey. “Flexibility and work-from-home options are also considerations for women, though to a lesser extent. On the other hand, men are more likely than women to prioritize job titles when considering a new position.”
One lasting change to workplace culture that accompanied the seismic shift to remote or hybrid work following the COVID-19 pandemic is the recognition of the importance of workers balancing their personal lives, an issue that has especially been a game-changer for women.
“If you’re on a call and your kid runs into the room, that’s no longer frowned upon — and even now that people are back in the office, there’s more flexibility,” said Alcaraz. “That’s hugely important if you’re a mom with kids at home.”
Age shift
Even with that shift, structural barriers remain in certain industry roles that tend to keep women out. Closing the sale of a property, for example, often involves working long, unpredictable hours and being able to travel at short notice, said Alcaraz.
“When there’s a deal, it’s go time, and you spend the next few weeks just inundated,” she said.
While CREW is gathering data for its 2025 study, its fifth, measuring women's compensation, representation and career satisfaction, its data from 2020, though five years old, still offers a picture of where the industry is trying to move from. It showed women earning less than men with the fixed salary gap between the sexes was 10.2%, while “the commission and bonus gap was a staggering 55.9%.”
The age demographics of the industry could indicate change this decade. Commercial real estate is on the brink of a massive personnel shift, as 40% of the U.S. industry reaches the age of retirement in the next decade, according to the Deloitte Center for Financial Services in a 2024 report on future hiring trends.
It noted that real estate has the highest median age of any industry in the United States, a fact that could predict a massive shakeup in the next few years as companies are forced to update their values and practices to attract a younger generation of commercial real estate talent.
To do this, the report predicts firms will need to increasingly come up with ways to accommodate “the unique challenges faced by women caregivers to establish an inclusive and supportive workplace.”
It points out that women dedicate nearly twice as much time per day to caring for and assisting family members compared to men, according to data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.