I had an opportunity to attend the ULI FallConference last week in New York, just a couple of weeksafter the PREA Conference in Los Angeles. Idecided to perform an unofficial diversity survey of theattendees. Alas, as you might expect, the results were notsurprising.

The vast majority of attendees were male, and a large percentagewith at least a bit gray around the edges. The real estate industryhas chronically lagged general trends, and it is likely that thelopsided gap between baby-boomers who are white and males to womenand other diverse professionals is going to become even moreextreme.

A 2013 Gallup poll of boomer age adults who when asked at whatage they will retire, the responses were 39% will continue workingpast the age of 66. More shockingly, by 2022, almost 25% of theworkplace will be between the ages of 70-74, and 38% between theages of 56-69. I suspect that the real estate industry will beleast a couple of percentage points higher in these statistics.