Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign welcome to another episode of the Real Estate Chicago Style Podcast. I'm your host, Joe Smazel. I'm a broker focused on middle market apartment sales on the north side of the city, and then I'm also an owner operator of small apartment buildings on the north side with my wife Kate.
And today I'm excited to welcome Colette English Dixon to the show. Colette, nice to have you.
[00:00:28] Speaker B: Nice to be here, Joe. Thanks for inviting me.
[00:00:31] Speaker A: So, Colette English Dixon is the executive Director of the Marshall Bennett Institute of Real Estate at Roosevelt University, where she manages all aspects of the undergraduate real estate major and minor and graduate certification programs.
She's the first African American woman leader of a higher education real estate program in the US And a member of the administrative team for the Heller College of Business.
Colette has more than 30 years of experience in investment management with a focus on commercial real estate investing. Prior to her role at Roosevelt, she was executive Director of transactions for PGIM Real Estate, a business unit of Prudential Financial, and co leader of PRI's National Investment Dispositions program.
She's also got experience with property development, asset management.
Quite a bio.
[00:01:20] Speaker B: A little longer than it needs to be.
[00:01:22] Speaker A: No, that was actually abridged. I learned, because I read that on Roosevelt and then I also learned. I'll scroll to the bottom, that you have you very modestly excluded four pretty impressive board seats from that bio. So UBS's Trumbull property front Marcus and Millichap Community Investment Corporation, aka CIC and Waterton.
We can touch on that later in the conversation, but I don't think that, you know, those board roles are worth mentioning as well.
[00:01:52] Speaker B: Well, thanks.
[00:01:53] Speaker A: Did I miss anything about the bio?
[00:01:55] Speaker B: I'm sure we did, but that I've been in Chicago almost 30 years. It's been a nice run here.
And I was. I'm actually a Midwesterner, grew up in Cleveland and went to school in Indiana. So I'm kind of a deep dive Midwestern person. Although I started my career in Atlanta. Kind of a weird cycle.
[00:02:13] Speaker A: Well, we'll talk about that. And I love that. Um, I didn't know that we share the commonality that we were both Midwesterners that kind of moved to the, the beacon for ambitious Midwesterners that is Chicago. So, you know, I'm Chicago by way of Iowa, so some similarities there, but it's really great to have you. So, as I told you, you're on the hot seat here at the beginning for the lightning round.
[00:02:36] Speaker B: All in.
[00:02:37] Speaker A: Okay, cool.
Favorite intersection or corridor in the City.
[00:02:42] Speaker B: Wow. Favorite intersection.
I actually think it's probably Halstead and Armitage.
[00:02:50] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:02:51] Speaker B: One, because I can shop up there. I can also eat up there.
I love walking around. I love the vibe.
[00:02:57] Speaker A: It's awesome. And we've got Oz park on the other side of us.
[00:02:59] Speaker B: You know, I only finally. I've lived here almost 30 years. The first time I've actually seen Oz park close enough to realize that what's really going on. The wizard of Oz is my favorite movie in the world.
[00:03:10] Speaker A: There you go.
[00:03:11] Speaker B: And so I'm like, I haven't made it there to actually walk through that park yet. I have to do that.
[00:03:15] Speaker A: You can do it all there. Go to Summer House, you know, go to small Cheval. Go around the corner. Lori shoes. And, you know.
[00:03:22] Speaker B: Absolutely.
[00:03:24] Speaker A: My wife really knows Lori's shoes.
What is one word that your colleagues would use to describe you?
One word.
[00:03:34] Speaker C: Whoa.
[00:03:34] Speaker A: No cheating.
[00:03:38] Speaker B: Commit it.
[00:03:39] Speaker A: Okay. I like that.
[00:03:41] Speaker B: To what is an interesting question. Well, it's a good one word.
[00:03:44] Speaker A: I think it could be to other, you know, to different things, I'm sure.
Do you have a favorite Chicago building style in terms of like the aesthetic of a building or the, you know, answer it, however it speaks to you.
[00:04:00] Speaker B: I tend to like some of our more neoclassical. Right. Historical designs. Everything from the Rookery through the Monadnock Building.
You know, let's go up to the jewelers building and Wrigley. I mean, it's that style or that era of design in Chicago was so just world leading. And it has maintained its quality and its appeal for. For more than 100 years in some cases.
That's pretty powerful stuff for me. And so I think that would probably be it.
[00:04:39] Speaker A: Isn't it wild when you look at a couple of these, you know, the jewelry building for, for example, or jewelers building at the top, you think back to the context of that building. It was one of the tallest buildings in Chicago at the time. And you think about what they did in terms of the detail and the top of the building.
[00:04:56] Speaker B: At the top of the building.
[00:04:57] Speaker A: It's not like there were a bunch of condos that they were, you know, doing it for vanity for, you know, it was like they did it because they wanted to do it a certain way. And I have to believe that they had the foresight to know what Chicago would become and say, hey, this is what we want it to.
This is what we want the top of the building. So we want the top of the Christmas tree to look like. I mean, it's just a wild attention to Detail where nobody was really seeing it at the time.
[00:05:25] Speaker B: That's the funny part. Eventually you have to go, were they really thinking people were looking up there or was that the kind of self serving ego play or was it truly being prescient that people were gonna care going forward? I don't know. But I'm really glad they did it however they got there.
And I just really miss the craftsmanship that went into those buildings.
I mean, you can't buy that anymore.
[00:05:55] Speaker A: No. And, and you know, we were talking, I was talking to another guest of the podcast a few episodes ago and he's talking about what it means to the crew when you're doing things at a higher level than they're used to doing them. So like it's not only that the architect or the developer or the mason or, you know, it's not only that one trade in a vacuum. Really wanted to do things the right way. It's. It's contagious. What does it mean? You know, and you can, it doesn't need to be as extreme of an example of doing, you know, a landmark project in the city.
[00:06:27] Speaker B: Right.
[00:06:28] Speaker A: But you know, building a walk up apartment community, renovating a unit, doing things the right way as opposed to the quickest or the cheapest. It's contagious.
[00:06:36] Speaker B: It is.
[00:06:37] Speaker A: You know, the customer experiences it too.
[00:06:39] Speaker B: So it's a lot of work and it lasts forever.
[00:06:43] Speaker A: That's right.
Here I am rambling during the lightning round. So that's, you know, sorry about that. Shows my. No, I.
My fault.
Favorite under the radar Chicago restaurant.
It's not going to be under the radar anymore because millions of people are.
[00:07:01] Speaker B: Going, oh yeah, everybody's going to be going there now. Oh, we need to divert people somewhere.
Wow. Under the radar. I have to say I'm probably not really good at that because we tend to try to hit like all the ones everybody else is going to, you know.
Well, it's really hard.
[00:07:19] Speaker A: Skip it.
[00:07:19] Speaker B: If you skip that one.
[00:07:20] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:07:21] Speaker B: Maybe we'll come back to that.
[00:07:22] Speaker A: Lakefront 606 or Riverfront Trail.
[00:07:27] Speaker B: Lakefront.
[00:07:28] Speaker A: Okay, that's a common answer. And the other two are great. But it's really hard to beat the lakefront.
[00:07:32] Speaker B: It is.
[00:07:34] Speaker A: Last rapid fire plug. An upand cominging Chicago real estate person that you think deserves some recognition.
[00:07:42] Speaker B: Well, I don't think she's up and coming anymore. I think she's there.
I am a huge fan of our commissioner of Sierra Boatwright. Yes, Sierra Boatwright.
And I think Sierra is up and coming only because she's relatively young compared to many of us in the industry. But she is going to continue to be a force in this city. And what she's working on through the city, the work that she did at cni, everything points to her being one of those ongoing forces of both good and impact for our city.
[00:08:23] Speaker A: It's. I totally agree, and I think it's a fair answer because she's newer to her role, at least. I mean, I know she's been there for a couple years now, but in the context of, you know, a position in government, I guess that's newer to the role.
But it's so nice to have somebody that's such a champion of the city in that role, wants to see growth, wants to see balanced growth and growth not just for the sake of numbers, but the right way.
[00:08:50] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:08:51] Speaker A: And.
And I would agree with your answer there. So you made it out of the lightning round. I know that that was.
[00:08:56] Speaker B: That was. That was a scary thing.
[00:08:59] Speaker A: All right, start us with growing up.
How and why. How and why. Excuse me. That you found your way into real estate in Chicago.
[00:09:09] Speaker B: Well, let's just say I am one of those old school folks who kind of ran and fell into this industry without any clue what I was doing.
There's a great cohort of people. I mean, this wasn't an industry that was highly known in most communities as being something you could even do.
So I went to college with the intent of being a lawyer. Now, don't ask me how I thought that was going to happen because I didn't know any lawyers either. But I thought you. Maybe I was watching Perry Mason or something. I don't know what that was about, but I thought I was going to be a lawyer. I thought I was going to be a corporate lawyer. So I got a business degree, okay.
And it was a really great experience for me. But I was like, when it was time to get out of school, I was like, I'm not ready to go to law school. I need a break. I need a job now. Oh, yeah, Parents sent you to school with the point of coming out with a job or a higher degree of support? Some small details. And as I was looking for a new role, looking for a role to basically carry me for a couple of years. So I went to law school. I ran into the Prudential Insurance Company of America at one of these giant. Yeah, really? One of these giant job fairs where, you know, it used to be back in the day, you got all dressed up, you had 100 versions of your resume, you stood in Line. You gave it to somebody and you don't know if you ever hear from them again. Right.
They called me back and invited me to visit the office in Minneapolis, which is kind of the regional thing at the time.
And they said, well, what do you think about maybe joining us in our real estate team? And I'm like, I don't know anything about real estate.
I was a finance major. I got numbers, but I have no idea what you're talking about.
But they said, it's. It's what we. This is part of our business. It's part of our investment strategy for our. Our pensioners, our insured parties. And I'm like, well, you know, it's only gonna be a couple years. It's not really a big job. I need a job. I need a job. And if they're going to offer me a job somewhere where I want to live, why not? So they offered me an opportunity to start this career path in Atlanta.
[00:11:23] Speaker C: Okay.
[00:11:24] Speaker B: Which coming out of South Bend, Indiana, was a huge move up the food chain.
And I went down there and had no idea what I was stepping into, but quickly realized that there was something going on in this world that 95% of the people I knew knew nothing about.
And to realize suddenly to wake up one day and kind of go, there actually is someone who owns all these apartment buildings or owns these office buildings or owns the shopping center, and they're making huge amounts of doing something. And this is fascinating.
[00:12:02] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:12:04] Speaker B: So I just got sucked into the vortex, I think was probably the answer, and realized that there was something different here that was exciting to me.
It was very different. There weren't many women in the space.
There were not very many people of color in the space.
I didn't realize the challenges that came with that at the time, but I loved seeing what this company was doing. I loved the fact that every day was different, that we were not just owning apartment buildings, but we were building industrial buildings and we were doing office buildings and all these things that they just existed. Right. Didn't know how they got there before.
I suddenly had this insight to a world that I did not know existed and found it just fascinating, isn't it?
[00:12:58] Speaker A: I love all that. And isn't it incredible that you think back to before you got into real estate when you're a young person growing up and, you know, even through college, when you're, you know, you're starting to develop some maturity and a different perspective on the world and the built environment, like, you just take it for granted as existing and you know, now I can't go anywhere without when I love it, you know, so don't.
[00:13:21] Speaker B: I mean, that's why we're still in it. Right?
[00:13:23] Speaker A: But it's just w that now everything I think about is how this like ecosystem of a city came together. A neighborhood or a submarket within a neighborhood. It's like, you know, how the apartment component intersects with the office and the retail and how the industrial service, it's all, you know, it didn't get there by happenstance. It got there by somebody that had some gusto and had some capital or access to capital and know how to. And foresight to build it. And you see great examples of it and you see, you know, lousy ones and everything in between. So it's just interesting to think about the world, you know, before your knowledge of real estate and after.
[00:14:04] Speaker B: Exactly.
[00:14:04] Speaker A: Because it changes everything.
[00:14:06] Speaker B: It changed everything. It changed everything. And it was such a dynamic space. Once I understood what was going on and realized and I think fortunately for me, I joined the industry at a really interesting inflection point where it was really transitioning from being very much a family driven industry to being an institutionally capitalized growth path of the built environment in ways that this country had never seen or the world had really never seen. And that timeline, which, you know, I definitely can't say I was smart enough to know was going to happen. Right. I just got a chance to kind of ride that timeline and it was a fascinating ride and it really opened my eyes to so many things.
[00:14:58] Speaker A: It's awesome. And so can you think back in addition to this kind of epiphany and this entry point into real estate that, you know, it all exists and there's a real business around it, an opportunity around it. You think of any other inflection points or mentors or anything during the you're developing as a, you know, highly successful business person that was really like kind of propelled you to the next level was really one of these moments of time or people that had a really influential impact on how you got to where you are today.
[00:15:37] Speaker B: Well, assuming that we're saying that where I got today was actually an improvement over where I was.
[00:15:44] Speaker A: Pretty darn good. So let's just take that for granted.
[00:15:47] Speaker B: Well, you know, there was a time when I really struggled with kind of where was I going to be in this space. And I think many people kind of go through that kind of mid career, but I've done kind of everything I'm going to do. Is there really more for me to do?
Is there Some change I need to make.
And I began to realize that, like many of my colleagues, we had been very insular to what we were doing. Everything was focused on what was the job and what was the job we were doing on behalf of our widows and orphans, or when the company decided to go public, our shareholders, or whatever that was. And was it quite as engaged externally?
[00:16:27] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:16:29] Speaker B: When you work for a giant institution, you can get so consumed with what you're doing, and there's so much going on, you think the whole world revolves around you. You kind of forget that there's a whole other set of the industry.
And so I had an opportunity to get really actively involved in a relatively new organization called crew.
It's called Crude Network.
Back in the day, it was called NN Crew, Commercial Real Estate Women. And it was a new organization of women coming together to find ways to support their career aspirations and to help us be stronger. Compared to, like, the old boys network, it was our own kind of old girls network.
That engagement, I think, set the stage for some very interesting transitions in my career. One, I got a chance to kind of build out a network of resources and connections that could help me do everything better.
It also helped me figure out a way to work on my leadership skills, which, you know, when you're working inside an organization, you're one of a piece of a cog. You don't really worry about that too much. Well.
[00:17:39] Speaker A: And you kind of get used to doing things a certain way, probably because that's how things go there.
[00:17:43] Speaker B: Exactly. And when you're in an institution, there's so much that is a certain way.
[00:17:47] Speaker A: Yeah, it's pretty rigid.
[00:17:48] Speaker B: It can be pretty. Pretty defined.
Having the opportunity to really engage with a broad pool of women all working toward their career paths, we didn't know where we were going. We were still a relatively new cohort of industry participants was a huge transition moment for me.
It was a checkpoint of, wow, I can actually do some other stuff.
I have some other skills that maybe I can develop through this pathway that will help me internally with my day job.
And as I became more engaged with that and recognized where that was putting me, it had a great kind of catapulting moment. It put me on the radar screen of partners and of potential business associates who I would not have ordinarily interfaced with at certain points in my career. And it gave me a chance to create what I would call now a little bit of the who is Colette?
And help me build that brand externally. That would help really move me internally.
[00:19:11] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:19:11] Speaker B: It was a huge change for me.
[00:19:15] Speaker A: You answered a question really well that I asked very rambly. So kudos for that.
But I also just love that there's this, like, as well as you were doing there. There's this. There's this kind of realization that you can network much more broadly. You can build what you've done to kind of have a multiplying effect outside of just your role.
So do you think that it was so impactful because of where you were in your career? Like, do you think that you had to have as much knowledge and success as yet had by the point that you reach crew? Or do you think if you would have started it earlier, it would have had this.
This multiplying effect or this kind of like hockey stick type effect on your career earlier? And I'm just trying to ask from a standpoint of like, somebody getting started, their level of focus on what they're doing versus I think sometimes people go out really wide and try to try to be everything to everybody right away before they really have the credibility and deep knowledge in one specific area. That makes sense.
[00:20:24] Speaker B: It does. I think that it can for me, because CREW was a relatively new organization at the time. It's having a huge immediate impact on my career. Had to kind of.
It wasn't going to happen.
[00:20:39] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:20:39] Speaker B: The organization itself had to grow and mature so that it had a level of industry credibility that then helped me validate my engagement with it, that then helped me position myself with the stuff I was doing internally at Prudential to be a more substantial combination.
[00:21:00] Speaker A: I understand that.
[00:21:01] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:21:01] Speaker B: Today, though, and the difference a few decades will make for young people in their careers.
I strongly encourage their engagement with organizations like this early.
Not a lot of them. Find ones that really resonate with you, that you really want to get engaged with, you really want to participate with your other members and all of that. It's not just about networking. It's information sharing.
It's skill development. It's an opportunity to kind of test your wings on leadership styles. It's a whole thing.
I really encourage young people to do that early and then carry that with them to help them with their career. I don't think. I don't know if it's a hockey stick kind of thing.
[00:21:44] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:21:44] Speaker B: But it is definitely an engagement that helps move things along.
[00:21:50] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:21:51] Speaker A: And I think also one thing that I've realized from, you know, similar types of industry organizations and, you know, builders groups or, you know, even going to conferences and such is that the people that are there, they want to build their network as well. And if they're people who are very established already, they want to help younger people. They want to be resource.
[00:22:15] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:22:15] Speaker A: So it's this audience and some peers maybe, but then also some people that you can. That they're there to engage with other people. So there's, you know, versus, you know, we do a lot of cold calling and such. And like, they generally don't want to engage with you. But if you're there, but if you're there at a conference, somebody you know, you can go up to somebody more confidently and get to know them and figure out either maybe you can do some business together, maybe you can learn from each other, maybe you can be a resource from each other, maybe you can make an introduction. There's always things that you can gain from those types of organizations.
[00:22:48] Speaker B: Exactly. I mean, I do think it's important for younger people to realize that senior leaders in the industry are not necessarily there to continue to build their network. We probably know just about everybody we need to know. Don't worry. You don't know everybody. But, you know, I know, I understand the point.
But they're there because of their ability to engage with younger talent. It really is an incentive for senior leaders to even stay engaged in organizations, to have that sort of connection and hopefully help develop that next generation.
[00:23:16] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:23:17] Speaker A: How do you, how do you engage with folks that reach out to you the best? Meaning, you know, you, you have a lot of connections. You're busy, though. So how do you decide what type of engagement is? I don't want to say worth your time, meaning that you're snobby with your time. I mean, worth your time in that you're very busy and your time is very valuable, but you do want to be able to give back and be a mentor to people. And, you know, your role in academia suggests that you want to educate the next kind of like, crop of talent. So how do you, when somebody reaches out to you, how do you find that is the most effective way that they do? So.
[00:24:01] Speaker B: I think I would say send me an email.
All right. Or connect with me on LinkedIn. I'm pretty public on LinkedIn and let me know what you're about.
Don't just kind of, hi, this is me. Can I talk to you? It's like, that doesn't work. Explain to me why you want to connect. I very seldom don't respond to someone who has reached out and said, I'm a student or I'm early in my career and I've heard or Seen or whatever. And I love to chat with you.
I'll give people 30 minutes of my time on a regular basis and we may never have to talk again, or we may talk every week after that. It doesn't. I don't really judge it that way, but present yourself with, you know, why do you want to engage with me? There are a whole bunch of people in this world. Why me?
And then let's just, you know, let's try to have a conversation. We do a little zoom chat and kind of move on from there.
[00:24:56] Speaker A: I've found that, you know, in the LinkedIn world as it is, a lot of times you get an invitation from somebody, connect, and then you get like a.
Like some, like, canned AI, I'm sure, like, message right away.
[00:25:08] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:25:09] Speaker A: But on the other side of things, as you described, if somebody reaches out to me in a sincere fashion and says, hey, here's why I'm reaching out, here's why I'd like to chat, here's a couple questions. Sometimes just really direct questions.
[00:25:20] Speaker B: Yep.
[00:25:22] Speaker A: I always will engage. Batting a thousand on those instances.
[00:25:25] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:25:26] Speaker A: We've got a few guys that work at Interra that started kind of the connection to Entera that way. So it can build, you know, it can turn into something bigger or it can be, hey, not so long ago, I was in their shoes and would have appreciated a sounding board that's going to be honest with them.
So you got to pay it forward, too.
[00:25:48] Speaker B: I think that's really important. And I think most senior people feel that way. There are some who don't care, but most people in this industry recognize that whatever success we've had has been because of a significant cohort of relationships.
[00:26:03] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:26:04] Speaker B: And it's only fitting that we help the next generation figure out how to do that same thing and help them build that cohort of relationships that helps them move forward.
[00:26:14] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:26:16] Speaker B: I do love the LinkedIn ones. When I'm getting from people, like somewhere in some remote country where I'm like, I have no reason to know you.
So, no, we're not going to continue with this conversation. We're just going to pretend this does not exist. But, yeah, happy to talk to people who are trying to figure things out or there's something I can help them do or connect them with someone. Let's meet. Let's talk about why you want to do that, and then I'll think about connecting you with somebody else. But, yeah, totally open to that when.
[00:26:41] Speaker A: It'S in a quality fashion. Yeah, I like that.
All right, let's Shift and talk about Chicago a little bit.
[00:26:46] Speaker B: Oh, yeah.
One of our favorite topics in Chicago today.
[00:26:50] Speaker A: Beautiful. We're in mid September. Early mid September.
[00:26:54] Speaker B: I know. Is it mid yet? I guess it's eight. So we're early. Early.
[00:26:58] Speaker A: We're right. When in one of those very few points that year where we can, like, brag about our weather, you know, so.
[00:27:04] Speaker B: Summer is great here.
[00:27:05] Speaker A: It's true, too. It's true, too.
So it's 70 in Chicago. Everything's good.
Let's talk about what you think. You see this really broad geographic. You have a.
The seat that you sat in through your investment sales career, and your position now is very national.
It's not necessarily, you know, Chicago is a niche. So from your perspective, what's a characteristic that you think that makes Chicago unique? And you can answer it maybe both in a positive and a negative capacity compared to other major markets across the United States.
[00:27:43] Speaker B: One of the things that I have always really liked about Chicago is that it has all of the things that New York has without the hassle.
Right. So we are a complete environment. We've got the arts and culture. We've got commerce and finance. We've got manufacturing.
We've got social services. We've got great health. We've like the whole package.
Right. In a very manageable but dynamic package.
And, oh, by the way, we sit on a body of water that for all intents and purposes could be an ocean because you can't see the other side of it. So, you know, it's got all the elements that people say make a quality of life good.
[00:28:30] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:28:31] Speaker B: Now, yes, we do have challenges with all of that. Right. It's not all attainable for everybody. It's not affordable for many.
[00:28:38] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:28:40] Speaker B: There is definitely the big city urban inequality that is existing around the world.
But I think people in Chicago care.
And I think the fact that people can come to Chicago and go, I walk down the street and people actually say hello or they smile at you.
[00:28:59] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:29:00] Speaker B: Not everybody's walking down, head down, you know, trudging to the next thing that makes Chicago kind of unique.
[00:29:06] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:29:07] Speaker A: You have a little Midwestern warmth.
[00:29:09] Speaker B: Absolutely.
[00:29:09] Speaker A: All the big city boxes checked.
[00:29:12] Speaker B: All of it. Yeah, all of it.
[00:29:13] Speaker A: Let's talk about affordability in the city, because I know it's a subject matter that you're passionate about.
And, you know, we talked a little bit about kind of the either yes, in my backyard or no, in my backyard kind of perspectives that tend to come and they end up being pretty binary and pretty people are passionate about them. On one end or another. So how do you think about those perspectives as it relates to affordable, affordable housing needing to be a vibrant and important part of an ecosystem in a major market like Chicago?
[00:29:51] Speaker B: One of the things that has always surprised me around the discussion on affordable housing is the semantic problem.
Many times when you talk to people about affordable housing, they instantly default to capital a affordability.
You know, 40% AMI subsidized housing, you know, redoing Cabrini Green. I mean, you know, it's, it has a very negative connotation to most people.
Affordable housing is housing that's affordable to the people who live there, bottom line.
So we're really talking about the need to increase lowercase a affordability.
And when you do that, across the board, everybody benefits from it. You get very diverse communities. That way you have a place for your child who just graduated from college with a degree in English lit, having a place they can afford to live.
That's a quality place to live. Because someone built housing that is affordable or preserved housing that is affordable in a city like Chicago, that preservation piece can't be understated.
Our neighborhoods are built on affordable housing. That's what they were.
[00:31:10] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:31:12] Speaker B: Preserving them, helping to support reinvestment in them is I think, a key component of how we actually address some of this. But the other part is finding ways to build housing that is both. You know, okay, we've got people who want to spend $3,000 a month on a one bedroom apartment. That's great. It's nice that we have those kind of jobs in the city and that the people want to do that. But we also need to recognize that there are a whole bunch of people for whom paying more than a thousand dollars a month for a one bedroom apartment is a big deal.
[00:31:47] Speaker A: Yeah, well, and a big deal or just unattainable, you know, and so they can't find it, move somewhere else. And I think somewhere else.
One of the things I thought about in your answer is similarly the, the kind of like connotation around, like density and you know, and you think about affordable housing in a neighborhood, lowercase affordable and affordable housing in a neighborhood. It's, it's, it's people, it's bodies, it's people that shop at the grocery stores. It's people that, you know, go to the neighborhood coffee shops and bars and restaurants and shops. And like, you know, if you want to live in an area that's not dense, then you're probably not choosing an urban community. But when we talk about the vibrancy of a neighborhood, you know, Lincoln park is an example. You know, we talked about Halstead and Armitage. It's like there's been, you know, people will scrape a three flat or a four unit building to, you know, to have a side yard.
So there's been a lot of housing stock taken offline. And you know what's been replaced is somebody that has a single family home and vacations in Florida and goes to Lake Geneva on the weekends and is not there to support the businesses and send their kids to the schools and all these things. So the point in that ramble is just the density is a really important thing for all of the buckets that make a neighborhood desirable in an urban setting.
So how do you. The solution to. That's not easy though because you know, in a private developers they have to have incentive to take on the risk to build and it's, you know, the, the 20% affordable provides some, you know, kind of. That's like usually a 60% AMI bracket. So there's some there.
The city projects are, they're very, you know, 7,5800 a unit to build them. But so.
[00:33:49] Speaker B: And you know, takes my breath away. It just, oh my gosh.
[00:33:52] Speaker A: And I have a, I have like a little bit of a, you know, a hot take within the circle that I spend most of my time in as it relates to those because I also there's the economics of them that are totally out of whack. You know, you have, it's almost three times or in a lot of cases, three times what the private sector can build housing for. So there's just a, there's just the economics of the supply and demand which is like you're doing it way less efficiently than we are. The other side of me just thinks like, you know, generally they come with some sort of like kind of community engagement piece where there's some like amenities that are available to folks from outside of the building, tougher to quantify.
And also it's like those can catalyze a neighborhood that hadn't seen new development in a really, with a really kind of high quality for a long time. You know, it can be kind of a beacon or an example of what could be there. But, but boy, you run out of money really quickly if you're building, you know, a million dollar a unit of.
[00:34:52] Speaker B: You know, I hear those numbers.
[00:34:53] Speaker A: I'm like, I can't even like, I can't even like finish my, you know, I'm trying to be, I'm trying to understand the other side, but it's crazy ideas for the solution.
[00:35:06] Speaker B: I don't know. I mean, there are days when I.
[00:35:08] Speaker A: Read about some of, like, the hardest question.
[00:35:10] Speaker B: Yeah. When I read about some of these projects that are costing more to build on a per unit basis than building a luxury high rise, it just stops me in my tracks. I'm like, this cannot.
This is not sustainable. You just can't do these. These numbers make no sense. And why is it? It's because that type of financing has so many players in it, Right? As Sierra often says, you know, lasagna financing. We've got 10,000 people with a finger in the pie here, and everybody needs something.
I think the LIHTC system as it was created was a great idea at the time. I think the time has come to revamp what LIHTC housing credits look like and what's required to get them so that you don't have to have $300,000 worth of fees on top of just hard construction costs.
I think it also requires a looking at or reconsidering of, you know, what do you feel like you need to provide people who live somewhere. Do we have to have all these paternalistic services that go along with it? If we create a community, a resilient, sustainable community that has services, has retail, has education, has all of those things, you don't need to put them in your property.
[00:36:32] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, right.
[00:36:33] Speaker B: So it requires a different view.
And it's like almost like taking the plate and crashing it. And then as they do in Japan, use a little bit of gold and actually put it back together differently and see how we can both incentivize developers to do this in a way where they can actually scale. Because one of the other problems is that a lot of affordable housing projects, if they're truly LIHTC funded, you can't scale that business very far.
The way that it's where you get paid, the way that it, you know, the process works, it isn't efficient.
[00:37:13] Speaker A: It's also so complex that there's.
[00:37:15] Speaker B: I mean, I'm not saying businesses trying to understand.
[00:37:18] Speaker A: Right. I'm not saying it should be easy, but I'm saying that you should be able to.
[00:37:21] Speaker B: I mean, why shouldn't it be easier?
[00:37:24] Speaker A: Yeah, easier, right.
[00:37:25] Speaker B: Why shouldn't it be easier about.
[00:37:28] Speaker A: Yeah, I think about affordable housing, and I'm like a simple midwestern guy. I'm like, well, we need to add supply then. Okay, so how do we add supply? You know? And I think that Sierra is doing a good job push getting some projects through planning and development that will move the needle.
But I hope that, I hope that there's something like Lytec, I think is a great example. And I think it needs to be more available to folks outside of just that subspecialty of LI tech developers. Otherwise not enough of them are going to get done to have any sort of impact.
[00:38:01] Speaker B: Well, interesting. If you look around the country, there are not a lot of large scale, if any, I'm going to say a lot of, but maybe none large scale LI tech developers. Folks who just do that because you can't really build a huge enterprise on that. And the folks who've had the longest success in building affordable housing in addition to whatever else they do, they have something else they do.
[00:38:25] Speaker A: Right.
[00:38:26] Speaker B: It's one food group, one food group within their whole spectrum of things that they do. So they can actually probably do it more efficiently. They may be able to do it in greater scale.
I don't want to say we'd need to punt totally to that crowd, but I do think that the dire need for affordable housing throughout this country and we went from it being certain cities to it being everywhere.
[00:38:51] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:38:52] Speaker B: That means that the system needs to be restructured.
[00:38:57] Speaker A: Agreed. And it's also just maybe it's a sign of where we are in the world these days, but I just also feel like it's just such a political thing. You know, it's just like such an adversarial topic that it's a shame because it can benefit everybody in an urban community and, and even suburban communities. That's right, urban communities. I don't mean to continue.
[00:39:18] Speaker B: Everybody. It's like, yeah, it's everywhere. But that's back to the point of it's a. It's got a lot of. It's been politicized in a way that is unhealthy.
[00:39:28] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:39:29] Speaker B: And it thrives on that semantics problem.
[00:39:36] Speaker A: Agreed.
[00:39:37] Speaker B: So if we can actually get people to see what affordability really means.
[00:39:41] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:39:42] Speaker B: It may help us offset some of the political football nature of this conversation and how we get there.
And I definitely believe supply will make a huge, huge change. But we need a heck of a lot of supply.
[00:39:56] Speaker A: That's right.
Well, I hope somebody.
I think your ideas are great and I, and I hope that folks just are more open minded to the solution for it and get past the. Whatever their initial impression is from the word.
[00:40:12] Speaker B: Just as an interesting. Just, just one last thought on that, if you don't mind. We were talking about the YEMBY NIMBY thing and there was an interesting article.
It might have Been in Cranes the last week or so in the discussions about who gets to determine what happens in their communities, and is it that people in a certain ward or neighborhood or whatever, they should be the ones solely to have voice about something getting built or not getting built. And in many instances, we're seeing people from outside of communities come in to influence the political process as it affects a community they don't even live in.
And I think we've got to have some concern about that. But I think we also need to think about the idea that there are people who would be really supportive of many of these projects if they did not fear being displaced because of them.
[00:41:13] Speaker A: True.
[00:41:14] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:41:15] Speaker B: And there needs to be some proactive thinking about how to protect residents in communities that need new investment, be it for housing or other sorts of uses in the community, and have them not fear that letting this happen is going to result in. They're not being able to afford to live in their home anymore.
[00:41:37] Speaker A: It's. Right.
[00:41:37] Speaker B: And that's not a good thing either.
[00:41:39] Speaker A: Right. I mean, the typical process is, you know, a developer will propose a project and go to the neighbor. Well, probably go to the alderman first, give him or her a sense of it, and then go to a neighborhood group. And, you know, generally, the folks at the neighborhood group are one end of the spectrum, or basically just, you know, the people who are against it and the people who are very supportive of it. You know, it's hard to really tell what's in the middle. Right. So then, you know. But that's a very.
That has a lot of. It's a very impactful step in the process for what gets built. And I don't, like, as a.
As a resident of one neighborhood of the city, I care about what happens in the city much more broadly. And like, what's happening in Logan Square or what's happening in South Shore, what's happening. You know, it's all still Chicago, and it's all got, you know, it's intertwined. So I think it's a shame that those projects kind of. They fall in such a aldermanic kind of prerogative, and they can just say yes or no, depending on what they hear from the neighborhood, because there's ripple effects far outside of that community.
[00:42:48] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:42:50] Speaker A: So I agree. And I hope that, you know, it's a. It's affordable housing is kind of a pretty direct parallel to it where, like, a developer will go into the project and the community will go into the project, and they're, like, butting heads about it before they stop to understand what, what could be the benefit of the project or what could somebody's actual concern be. So if you just start by being a little bit more open minded, maybe we could get to something that works for everybody quicker. Yeah, hopefully that would be naive of me to think.
[00:43:16] Speaker B: I don't know. I mean, that is not a bad.
I think that is important for communities to have a voice in what happens in their communities.
And I think that we do benefit from having a holistic view about things. It's not just your corner, but yet I don't know that I think people who live 20 miles away should be able to come into my ward and start talking about what happens or shouldn't happen in my community. I'm not quite sure about that piece, but there's room for improvement in all of this process and if we don't find some creative ways to break through this log jam, we're going to be in this problem forever and it won't do anything but get worse.
[00:43:57] Speaker A: I'm one of my eye on the clock. I know you have to boogie in a fuse, but I want to talk about DEI in real estate. It's been.
I would not be doing my job as a podcast host. I'm not sure if that's my job, but I'm going to be doing my role, you know, as a podcast host with, with you, without talking about it. So what have you been maybe proud that's been accomplished. And what would you like to see change in the near term as it relates to DEI and hiring and not only in hiring, but in promoting and just its role in, in real estate in general, you know, in doing so maybe authentically as opposed to, you know, I think some organizations have the approach of, you know, doing so to check a box or something like that. How do you think about doing it authentically to really for the betterment of the industry?
[00:44:54] Speaker B: Well, yeah, checking a box. We've done a lot of box checking in this industry over the years. As I said, you know, I opened, I stepped into the space not recognizing the uniqueness of being a woman of color in this space.
And I've tried to look at the industry's efforts around just bringing in more women, bringing in more people of color, bringing in more whatever, whatever over the years. And it has always been kind of a fits and starts thing. You know, something comes along, we gotta all do this because of like a political, a political initiative or there's push from an institutional investor that says you have to do something or whatever that is.
So the industry Did a really, really good job at working on its gender inequality through the late 80s 90s.
And although there's still disparity in there, there's definitely not gender parity. There was much more focus.
It was really clean. There are men and there are women. So we can kind of clearly see if we have too many of one and not enough of the other. I mean, it's just, you know. Yeah, simple math.
That simple math made it easy for people to actually put forth the effort to try to expand their hiring pools to look at opportunities and development of diverse gender, diverse talent. And we did okay with that. But there's still room.
[00:46:23] Speaker A: You think the big, the move was like kind of in the early 90s?
[00:46:26] Speaker B: I'm thinking it was the early 90s. Yeah, I'm thinking early 90s.
[00:46:31] Speaker A: So if that's the last thing they cover, the thing that comes to mind is something that you're the most proud of.
[00:46:35] Speaker B: That was a long time ago, very long time ago. And I think that I remember when Crew Network decided to do a research study on gender and the gender balance in the industry. And I think the first study was 2005. So it's been 20 years ago.
And that opened a lot of eyes. Yes, we have made, we have made progress, but yet, you know, the upper levels of this industry are not very diverse. Gender wise women are having a tough time making it through that SVP level. There was a whole lot of data that brought about some more focused efforts in that way.
But the industry, the thing that I get that I think this industry has kind of struggled with acknowledging consistently is that what we do in this industry affects every human on this earth.
Okay. I mean, it just does. One way or another, it affects every human on this earth even if they don't know it, who it is.
And so as you're impacting this wide diversity of people, wouldn't you be better off if you had some of those thoughts in the room with you? Right. Would you not make better decisions about where you're going to invest or what the dynamics are of any one community or city or whatever that is? If you had a lot of different perspectives in the room helping you understand that, it just seems logical to me.
[00:47:58] Speaker A: Yeah, checks out.
[00:48:00] Speaker B: And then from like the institutional side of the industry, a lot of institutions raise money from public pension funds and the people who are putting their money in those pensions are very diverse.
So you are now spending the money of a diverse community.
Shouldn't you have some diverse perspective in the room for them?
[00:48:21] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:48:24] Speaker B: That has come and gone and come and gone and come and gone. And we have made some progress in those spaces.
But yet you would find if you go through industry, that past the entry level world, the disparity and representation of diverse people in leadership, as you move up the food chain here tends to get very thin.
20, 20 rolls along, everybody is up in arms. After George Floyd, we've got to do something, we got to do something more. Everybody rushes to put out their statement of concern about what they haven't done or need to do. And we create all these programs and there was a lot of work that went on.
Did it result in a lot of tangible outcomes that were sticky? I'm not quite sure.
I question that.
I look at things like programs to help support emerging, diverse developers or investors.
Where did that money move the needle? Did we actually transition people from being emerging managers or emerging developers into being just managers or just developers? Or are they stuck in this box?
What are we doing about recognizing that as we're looking for new places to invest, opportunity zones are primarily in diverse communities?
Do we have diverse people working on those?
Then you have a little bit of a political pushback and suddenly we don't talk about that anymore.
Are we doing it? I don't know.
There was a saying that came to me a long time ago in this conversation that what you don't measure, you don't do.
And if we wind up not talking about how important this is and what we think we should be striving to do and setting marks of what that looks like, how do we know we're doing it?
[00:50:22] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:50:23] Speaker A: Otherwise you're just.
[00:50:24] Speaker B: Otherwise you're just like, I don't know what you're doing. I mean, I'm not really sure what.
[00:50:27] Speaker A: You'Re doing it to appease whoever you're trying to appease in a short term.
[00:50:30] Speaker B: Right. So I think this industry, because of what it is in the nature of the world, the people that it impacts, needs to be very, very aware of and spend the energy and the commitment to actually say, you know, we need to represent the people who are giving us the money. You know, we need to represent the people who are, you know, whose lives we're impacting. We need to benefit as a holistic industry from having a diversity of voices in the room and making deals and getting stuff done and we'll be better off for it.
[00:51:06] Speaker A: That's part of it too, where if you go into, think about, you know, role playing, going into a community meeting with a diverse, you know, it's much.
[00:51:15] Speaker B: Better conversation than if you don't, that's for sure.
[00:51:17] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, that's kind of the thing, but.
But it's weird to think about, you know, to be honest, when you answer the question, I think about, you know, my small role in it too. And, you know, during. In 2020 is when I had like that epiphany that I, you know, was working in this, like, male dominated white bubble. And I'm like, what are you, you know, what are you doing for it? So at the time, my answer was getting involved in a nonprofit that ran a couple shelters in the south side of the city. And I was on the board for a few years and it was a good thing. But now I think back when you, you talk like that and I'm like, what am I doing now? What did I do that? You know, So I should probably look in the mirror on that as well.
[00:51:57] Speaker B: Well, we, you know, we can all do something better. And it's just, I just think that's.
It's back to the capital. A affordable lowercase. A affordable. What are the kind of biases that go with these things? We need to just think about why there is merit and value in having a diverse talent pool that's helping you make the best decisions.
[00:52:18] Speaker A: It's true. And I think I kind of hide behind, I don't know, hide behind.
I think, well, the people that reach out to me or that apply for jobs, most of them are white and male. And so, like, I should be thinking more about, like, how are we exposing the business to, to a more diverse crop of, of talent as opposed to, like, thinking about, well, what am I supposed to do about it? Those are the only people that's calling me. You know, it's a, it's a, it's.
[00:52:48] Speaker B: An interesting thing, Joe. And I actually, I would just say, just as an interesting note, that that reason was one of the reasons why I wanted to take the role I have now.
[00:52:56] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:52:57] Speaker B: So when I left Peru, I wasn't really sure what I was going to do. I was just leaving Peru. It was time to do something.
And I had been in and around this program since its inception, and the one thing that had always impressed me about it was the diversity of its student body, the university in general. But this program in particular has always been a very diverse student pool.
And I felt, because I had always believed that I needed to be actively engaged around this diversity thing. I couldn't just talk about it kind of being the poster child for being diverse in this space, that I needed to do something more actively I was doing it at Prudential off the side of my desk. It was one of five things I was doing in addition to my day job. But this was a place where I could be kind of in the front seat of some efforts to help develop that talent and make that world know a little bit more about the options about being a part of this space, because many people are still coming at it from the same place. I came at it 30 plus years ago. I have no idea what commercial real estate is. Okay. I don't know what it is. I don't know anybody in it. I have no clue. But. Oh, that's really what that is. Oh, wow. I want to be engaged in it.
[00:54:11] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:54:12] Speaker B: Or they're in communities that are being impacted by people making decisions that don't look like them and don't seem to care about them.
So I felt that this space was a place for me to help develop that talent pool that maybe call you Joe and go, I want to talk about being a broker. Many of them may not make that decision because of other things relative to being a broker, but still, having that talent pool ready to go, it's like, then what's the excuse now, folks?
You can't tell me you can't find the talent.
[00:54:47] Speaker A: Well, and also, like, I don't mean to talk about being a broker as the only way to be in real estate. That's the beauty of the real estate business is that it's a lot of different ways. I think a lot of people maybe don't know as much about it when they.
When they're in college, for instance, because. Because they. They see what they see on TV or whatever. You know, they see this.
[00:55:06] Speaker B: HGTV is actually really popular for real estate students.
Stop watching hgtv, please.
[00:55:11] Speaker A: And it's like the only thing that they know about it, where there's every type of job that you could have in. In the real estate space.
So hopefully.
I love what you're doing there, and I appreciate that you're a champion for diversity. I acknowledge that. There's. Yeah, I could do better myself, and hopefully that'll translate into me and others.
[00:55:31] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:55:32] Speaker A: Doing better.
[00:55:33] Speaker B: I appreciate it. Thank you.
[00:55:34] Speaker A: And I've got my eye on the clock. I know we have to wrap, so I have two.
[00:55:38] Speaker B: We'll.
[00:55:38] Speaker A: We'll make them rapid fire. Two quick ones. Well, first of all, this is just a plug. Colette's got a new podcast coming out which will blind to shame, surely. It's called Brick, Grass and Brick Grass and Steel Talking. Do you Want to.
[00:55:53] Speaker B: Yeah. Thank you. I mean, I appreciate that this was, as I tell people, my little passion project. I really felt that this was a good time to have conversation about how the built environment impacts communities.
And there are just a lot of things going on from the rebuilding of la, which is probably, what, the largest urban renewal project in the history of the world? I'm not really sure.
And that opportunity, sitting in Chicago and looking at how the built environment influences and impacts how people live, recognizing that there are certain historical things that this industry has perpetuated that has had a negative influence on communities, I felt we needed to talk about it a little.
[00:56:34] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:56:35] Speaker B: So fortunately, being at the institute and the university focused on social justice and social equity as part of the mission. It just seemed like a thing to do. So I'm really excited about it. I'm hoping, my fingers crossed the first episode's gonna drop for on Monday the 15th.
[00:56:49] Speaker A: Okay, cool.
[00:56:50] Speaker B: Which will be out.
[00:56:52] Speaker A: This is gonna be out in like, two weeks or actually a week. So maybe we'll.
[00:56:55] Speaker B: Maybe. Maybe I'll delay until you get this out so I can get a little bit of a little pr. But it's a conversation with Eric Klinenberg, who wrote Palaces for the People.
So I'm really excited about him and some other people on the show. And I hope people, hope people, it's gonna be awesome. Listen and enjoy it.
[00:57:10] Speaker A: Kudos for doing it, too.
These two will make rapid fire. What's a piece of advice you'd give someone to start that. Starting in their career in real estate to either get some traction or propel their business to the next level?
[00:57:24] Speaker B: Well, the business thing, I'm not really, you know, since I've never been the entrepreneur in this industry, you know, I wasn't. It wasn't building my own business. Like, you've been a leader on the business.
[00:57:35] Speaker A: I don't think that you have to.
[00:57:37] Speaker B: I say it's basically to, like, build your brand and have people know what it is.
[00:57:42] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:57:44] Speaker B: You will not get ahead in this industry without building those relationships. And so knowing what your brand is going to be, and it takes a while to often figure that out, it isn't something you guys come out of school with usually, but work on that.
Build that community that knows who you are and has an idea of what your value proposition is, I think that goes a really long way.
[00:58:04] Speaker A: Figuring out your brand and then proving to people that you're actually about it, I think is a great. I think that's an awesome piece of advice. And anything that you're doing as a young person or a, you know, whatever. A person that's in the real estate business. If, if your actions are not supportive and furthering, you know, for the betterment of your brand, then, you know, even you think about it. Something as like, trivial is like, should I take on this listing if it's not really what you do, you know, that dilutes your brand? Whereas if you, if you're known, Chicago real estate's a big, you know, it's a big community and you have to have a niche if you're going to be effective at it. So I love, I love that answer.
Tell us why you love Chicago as a place to live and work and educate and you know, back in the Prudential days when you're investing here, just give us your finish off with why you love Chicago. Whatever comes to mind.
[00:58:55] Speaker B: So strange you ask that question because before I came here today, I was trolling through my Facebook feed.
Nice way to start the morning because news gets me depressed.
[00:59:07] Speaker A: I'm with you there.
[00:59:08] Speaker B: There was a video that someone had posted from a sermon that was done I think yesterday at, I think it's Trinity Trinity Church on the south side where the pastor had this great, great poem that he wrote about Chicago and why Chicago and why certain people should not spend time invading Chicago. And the laundry list he came up with was mind boggling. And one of the things that my husband was listening to this that caught him was a statement about if you have never driven up Lakeshore Drive at dawn and had to pull over and just admire the majesty of that sunrise, you don't know Chicago.
And that to me, kind of wraps it up. This is a city that is so. Excuse me. Is so dynamic, so diverse, so strong, so beautiful.
It's hard to, I mean, except for Paris. I can't think of another place I'd rather live.
[01:00:20] Speaker A: I love that. And if you're, if you're on the lakefront and the sun is up, you know, out for a run, out for a bike ride on your way into the office early, doing whatever you're doing early, and you have the lakefront and you have the skyline as a backdrop, it is incredibly motivating. And it is impossible not to like, feel the energy of the city for the rest of the day.
[01:00:40] Speaker B: It is.
[01:00:42] Speaker A: You're awesome. Thank you for your time.
[01:00:44] Speaker B: Thank you, Joe. This was fun. I'm so glad you invited me.
[01:00:46] Speaker A: It's great. So we'll let you get on with your busy day. I know, but thank you so much. And we'll talk soon.
[01:00:52] Speaker B: Talk soon.
