9/12/22 Philadelphia Mastermind Group Meeting

September 2022 Philadelphia Mastermind Group Key Take Aways!

• College enrollment of Black students has been dropping since 2010. 59% of college students identify as women, 12.6% identify as Black (Collete English Dixon – Marshall Bennett Institute of Real Estate at Roosevelt University)
• In the real estate industry, mid-level white males have a 1 in 3 chance of moving to senior level whereas Black females have a 1 in 12.6 chance. (Collete English Dixon – Marshall Bennett Institute of Real Estate at Roosevelt University)
• DEI committees are not the answer and in some cases DEI initiatives can backfire. (Collete English Dixon – Marshall Bennett Institute of Real Estate at Roosevelt University)
• Women are less likely than men to aspire to senior positions for a variety of reasons, including family responsibilities. 32% of women in industry aspire to be in the C-suite and 44% aspire to be SVP / partner. (Collete English Dixon – Marshall Bennett Institute of Real Estate at Roosevelt University and CREW Network)
• Pandemic has changed people’s priorities. There is more interest in self-employment and focus on family has shifted. (Collete English Dixon – Marshall Bennett Institute of Real Estate at Roosevelt University)
• NAREiM did a study with Ferguson Partners and found that women are predominantly in the “soft” side of the industry, not the positions that “touch the money”, which is where more people are promoted from.  (Collete English Dixon – Marshall Bennett Institute of Real Estate at Roosevelt University)
• Not much has changed since 2017 in terms of the demographic makeup of the commercial real estate industry. (Collete English Dixon – Marshall Bennett Institute of Real Estate at Roosevelt University)
• Many challenges face improvements in diversity within the industry, including a lack of role models, lack of interest in educational opportunities, lack of industry awareness, greater interest in other industries, lack of internships and mentoring (particularly in early stages), and lack of inclusive environments. (Collete English Dixon – Marshall Bennett Institute of Real Estate at Roosevelt University)
• Companies and employees should be made aware of the value of diversity within an organization. (Collete English Dixon – Marshall Bennett Institute of Real Estate at Roosevelt University)
• It’s important for companies to reconsider what’s really necessary in a new recruit to be successful and minority employees should feel they are in a space where they can develop. (Collete English Dixon – Marshall Bennett Institute of Real Estate at Roosevelt University)
• The real estate industry should expand engagement to students as young as high school and should invest in mentoring both students and young employees. (Collete English Dixon – Marshall Bennett Institute of Real Estate at Roosevelt University)
• It’s important for companies to provide an inclusive environment for employees to aid retention, to show that diversity is important and to address unconscious bias. (Collete English Dixon – Marshall Bennett Institute of Real Estate at Roosevelt University)
• Social media has helped to lower the perceived value of higher education, with young people finding an avenue for high earning opportunities without an education. (Collete English Dixon – Marshall Bennett Institute of Real Estate at Roosevelt University)
• Within the transportation and infrastructure industry, there is a large influx of money from the federal government and plenty of work to be found. However, there are other challenges, including a lack of qualified contractors and consultants. (Robert Bright – Talson Solutions)
• Agencies are attempting to be more flexible with their contracts, adding in cushions for pricing and delivery schedules. There are additional clauses built into contracts regarding force majeure. (Robert Bright – Talson Solutions, Bart Mellits – Ballard Spahr)
• One way to expand recruiting efforts is to widen the search to include smaller universities. (Kirk Butler – Chatham Financial)
• Project Destined is a program where students are paid for doing commercial real estate pitches to executives. $1-2K per semester for looking at commercial real estate opportunities in a community. Ballard Spahr just began working with the program. (Kirk Butler – Chatham Financial, Sara McCormick – Ballard Spahr)
• There is a lot of backlog in multi-family and university spaces. Deals are a little slow to sign as some owners think prices are going to decrease. (Michael Mostochuk – EisnerAmper)
• There has been a lot of activity in acquisitions and dispositions with multi-family. There is a way to save a lot in transfer tax for multi-family outside of the city of Philadelphia. (Sara McCormick – Ballard Spahr)
• The strong sellers market seems to be softening over the past few months. (Sara McCormick – Ballard Spahr)
• There is a lot of activity in the past few weeks with new industrial deals, though inventory is still light. (Bart Mellits – Ballard Spahr)
• Projects are taking longer than normal for a variety of reasons. (Jim Karmolinski – Kelly Maiello Architects)
• Kelly Maiello Architects is always willing to talk with or mentor young people interested in the architecture industry. (Jim Karmolinski – Kelly Maiello Architects)
• National Capital Resources is an organization focused on empowering the community and bringing Wall Street to Main Street. (Rodney Jones – National Capital Resources)
• Current challenges are more in figuring out how to complete work more than in finding work. There are also difficulties in financing and the ability of owners to sign contracts because they believe the value is going down, as well as supply chain challenges. (Barbara Gee – Talson Solutions, Merrie Winston – Talson Solutions)