Over her 36 years at PICOR Commercial Real Estate Services in Tucson, Arizona, Barbi Reuter has climbed the ranks to CEO and board chairwoman. Her achievements place her in a small minority: a prominent group says only about 1 in 10 of all C-suite positions in her industry are held by women.

“While I have seen progress for women since I started in 1986, it has not been enough, or come quickly enough,” said Reuter, who is also president of the Commercial Real Estate Women Network, a national organization committed to diversifying the industry. “Little has changed in terms of representation in the industry, pay parity or diversity in leadership roles in the last 15 years.”

CREW’s latest annual report on women in real estate reveals how women’s perspectives on a male-dominated field have changed during the pandemic. The report surveyed 1,228 professionals, 96% of whom were women, across 10 sectors of commercial real estate in North America, Europe and India. Respondents also said they are increasingly interested in hybrid work opportunities and pay transparency.

The report found that 29% of respondents left their positions as a result of the pandemic, a 5-point increase from 2021. While the CREW report didn’t break out the percentage of men leaving their commercial real estate jobs, the number of women ages 25 and older in the overall workforce has fallen 1.3% since the third quarter of 2019, just more than the 1.1% decline for men, according to Pew Research Center data.

The CREW report is an important meter of what women think about working in real estate, a field that has historically trailed others in diversity. Other studies from research groups such as McKinsey and Gallup have shown diversity ultimately translates to larger profit margins for companies, as it improves customer orientation, employee satisfaction and long-term decision-making. Women make up just under half of the labor force in the United States, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, but hold fewer than 37% of commercial real estate roles. That figure has remained largely unchanged since 2005, when CREW began tracking it.

The demands of women in commercial real estate have changed during the pandemic, which could influence the industry in the long run. CREW found in its 2022 report that 52% of respondents would accept a lower salary at a job if it guaranteed remote or hybrid work options. And 64% said they would consider a new position if their current employer forced them to return to the office full-time.

A separate Axios study found that women are more likely than men to prefer remote work, citing schedule flexibility and not having to get dressed up for the office. CREW’s findings show that women not only prefer flexible work but are ready to make sacrifices for it, potentially pressuring employers to address their demands.

“Commercial real estate, in my opinion, has always been kind of flexible,” said Casey Flannery, a senior associate on Foundry Commercial’s Nashville, Tennessee, industrial team. “But there’s another side of it, where women kind of need to prove themselves a little bit more, so maybe they don’t take the flexibility that they would need.”

To Flannery’s point, 94% of CREW respondents said they believe requesting more flexible working arrangements would negatively affect their chances of a promotion.

In her own experience, Flannery had to work hard to prove herself after a promotion to the broker team. A native of Tennessee, she began her real estate career in 2015 as an intern at Cushman & Wakefield while working two other jobs and studying for her master’s at the University of Tennessee. She moved into an administrative coordinator role for two years before getting promoted into brokerage. While the role was better suited to her talents, she found it challenging to cement her place as a member of the team and be seen as an equal, she said.

“The transition, for me, was really difficult, going from admin to broker, especially with the same team, because I was still kind of seen as like the admin support for the team,” she said.

Overall, Reuter said the pandemic has “derailed, or at the very least delayed” women’s progress in the industry. Reuter has been monitoring gender disparities in real estate since the early 2000s when she helped found a CREW chapter in Tucson and became a delegate for the national group. At that point, she had already been a part of the industry for more than 15 years, beginning at PICOR as a college freshman and founding its property management division.

“At CREW, we have been talking about" diversity, equity and inclusion long before it "has come to the forefront in the last few years,” Reuter said. She adds that “in addition to creating more flexible and supportive work policies for employees," companies should "remain vigilant in conducting equal pay assessments.”

While the CREW report didn’t include data on pay gaps, its 2020 findings showed the starkest gender disparities for commissions and bonuses. The salary gap between men and women was about 10%, while the commission and bonus gap was almost 56%.

“Women are afraid to negotiate salaries in general with the backlash of being seen as curt or difficult to work with because they’re trying to negotiate their pay. It’s the same thing with negotiating your splits with your commission among your team,” Flannery said.

CREW research shows women tend to shy away from 100% commission-based roles, which could be due to a lack of knowledge about the field, according to Reuter.

“A lot of women … don’t know what opportunities there are within the commercial real estate industry,” Flannery said. “I think many men pull their sons into the business [while] many women are afraid of a commission role, so they don’t even really consider the brokerage side of the business.”

White men made an average of $121,000 in commissions and bonuses in 2020, while white women made about $57,600 and Black women made $34,079. Education and mentorship for women about commission-based roles are crucial, especially for women of color who are statistically less likely to have a mentor, Reuter said. The real estate workforce is about 83% white, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

As a result, women especially value pay transparency when applying for a job. About 68% of CREW respondents said they would change jobs in favor of a workplace with a culture of pay transparency, and 82% said they want job postings to include salary and benefit information.