A look at women in real estate during Women’s History Month

On Mar 25, 2022

In March, we look forward to warmer weather and the beginning of Spring. Although we dread turning back our clocks and losing an hour of sleep, at least we get more daylight! March is also Women’s History Month, celebrating women who have worked hard to pave the way for change and be role models for their gender. Over the last 100-plus years, much has changed, including women’s role in society. For example, a 100 years ago, many women were stay-at-home wives and mothers.

Now, a woman can be almost anything she wants to be; a doctor, an engineer or a successful businesswoman. In this article, I want to focus on women’s history in real estate, their contributions and where we are now.

Real estate was established as a legitimate business in the 1840’s. Women went from working clerical/office roles in real estate to becoming agents and brokers in the 1880’s. However, for many years the real estate profession was a male-dominated profession. In 1908, the National Association of Realtors was founded with an all-male membership. At the time, it was reported that around 3,000 female brokers were working nationally. NAR required their members to belong to a local board before becoming a NAR member.

However, most local real estate boards banned women from joining or serving on their boards, making it nearly impossible for women to belong or serve on a real estate board. To fight this problem, female real estate agents and brokers formed their own organization in 1938 called the Women’s Council of Realtors.

However, it would take another 10-plus years before local boards allowed women to join. Although local and NAR board membership would be open to female brokers, sales agents could not join. It wouldn’t be until 1973 when NAR opened up its membership to sales agents, male or female. After doing so, NAR’s membership went from 118,000 members in 1973 to 435,500 members in 1975, women making up a third of that number. By 1978, women made up the majority of NAR’s membership.

A 100+ years ago, real estate was a socially accepted profession for married and single women alike. Many women got started in real estate to provide for themselves and their families.

Through necessity, some women became agents and brokers to break financial barriers that circumstance and society put before them. And then some just wanted to do more. One such woman was Ebby Halliday, who in the 1930s owned her own hat boutique. However, she was not satisfied with owning a hat shop and instead transitioned to real estate.

She went on to dominate the residential real estate market in Dallas, TX, for decades. She worked hard and cared about the needs of others which contributed to her success. At the time of her passing in 2015, her company, still operating, closed 19,200 transactions with a sales volume of $6.64 billion.

Another was Leila Frances from Kentucky, who worked as a school teacher before moving to Ohio in 1943. In 1947, she became the second female African American to become a sales agent. After that, she became a real estate broker and ran a successful business for more than 50 years.

During her real estate tenure, she helped establish the Unity Bank and an African American Mortgage company. Next was Dorcas Helfant, better known as the first female president of the National Association of Realtors, elected in 1992. She also was the first female president of her state association. Another of her successes was a merger that brought her own real estate company with other Coldwell Banker firms. Lastly is Tracy Dodson, who is known as a female pioneer in commercial real estate.

Even now, only 35% of commercial real estate professionals are female, usually working only in property management. Tracy Dodson is a brokerage and development vice president in North Carolina for a commercial real estate firm. She credits her success to putting in the hours of hard work, choosing successful projects, and having successful deals.

Today, woman real estate professionals dominate our country’s residential real estate market. According to NAR, in 2018, 63% of all REALTORS were female. Now women are becoming presidents of local, state, and even the National Association of Realtors. They serve on committees boards of directors influencing change for their fellow board members and communities.

Others are involved in one of the oldest female real estate institutions, Women’s Council of Realtors, helping empower female real estate professionals in their businesses and communities. For America’s female real estate professionals, the sky is indeed the limit!

Statistics show that single women are two times more likely to buy a home than single men. According to findings from Lending Tree, single women own nearly 1.6 million homes than single men do in America’s 50 largest metros. More women than men are heads of their households, too. It’s amazing how far we have come even from the mid 1970s, when women first could access a line of credit on their own to purchase a home without a male co-signer.

Although we have made great strides, there still is work to be done as biases are still present. Women statistically still make less income than men for the same job. Studies have shown that women are less likely to negotiate a better price or rate for their homes, and even when they do, they don’t always get what they ask for. Women of color have even greater difficulty.

One way to combat the problem is for female homebuyers to research and gain as much information as possible and sharpen their negotiation skills. We, as a society of lawmakers, bankers, real estate professionals, and community members, need to examine our thought processes and beliefs. We need to see all as equal and entitled to the same benefits, regardless of gender, color, nationality, disability or orientation.