Does CRE Have A Diversity Problem?

William E. Brown

WASHINGTON, DC–Females make up 63% of NAR’s membership and those who work exclusively in residential have a median gross income from real estate of $46,700, compared to $54,600 for men. Women tend to be younger in age and more likely to work part-time. When it comes to residential business activity, women had a median of eight sales transactions, compared to seven for men. Asian and Pacific Islander members working exclusively in residential real estate have the highest median gross annual income of all ethnic groups at $56,800, followed by White and Caucasian members at $54,200, Hispanic and Latino members at $41,700, and Black and African American at $23,000. Those who work in dual specialties, both residential and commercial, tend to have higher gross median incomes at $89,300.

That is from the National Association of Realtors new research report, Choosing a Career in Real Estate: A Perspective on Gender, Race and Ethnicity and as the paragraph suggests it is chock-full of demographic and financial data — about residential real estate brokers.

The only hint of information about the commercial real estate population comes at the end, which equally speaks volumes.

Simply put, NAR did not have enough data from the CRE community to slice and dice responses in the way that it was able to for residential real estate, Jessica Lautz, director of Research tells GlobeSt.com. “We wanted to do a deep dive for CRE but the data was too thin; there were not enough respondents.” NAR fleshed out its report by looking at respondents who practice both commercial and residential. As for why CRE respondents were so shy, Lautz says the industry is over-surveyed. “There is definitely survey fatigue among the members,” she says.