Have you noticed that if you go into a real estate office, you will generally find mostly women brokers or sales agents? Think about it. When a woman retires from the grind of a full-time job, she will generally gravitate to real estate because she doesn't have to put in five days and her time is generally her own. Talk to financial planners and they will tell you the same thing: real estate is an attractive spot for many women, whether married, single, divorced, widowed, or retired.
So, now comes the obvious question with an obvious answer to it. Guess who the growing force is in the real estate industry on a worldwide basis? No, it's not a particular company or a certain developer. It's a gender.
Yup, according to ResearchWorldwide.com, female brokers and broker associates have now topped their male counterparts with respect to residential real estate. In fact, in the United States alone, the numbers are 52 percent to 48 percent. And if you count in full-time female agents, you come up with 54 percent while part-time female sales agents dominate at 61 percent. That's just residential.
But, it's rather amusing when you consider that the U.S. commercial real estate industry still pretty much remains male dominated although more and more females are joining the fray. Some experts say it is simply a matter of time, and a short one at that, whereby females will constitute the bulk of this industry, as well. For that matter, the Commercial Real Estate Women (known as CREW) was formed in 1986 as a federation of established local groups in Baltimore, Northern Virginia, Suburban Maryland, Philadelphia, Detroit, and Washington, D.C. Now almost 20 years later, the CREW network represents a well-educated and experienced group of some 6,000 professionals with membership that includes all disciplines of commercial real estate. There are now 56 chapters within the U.S. and Canada.
"The fostering of networking opportunities, work generation, education, mentoring, and development of female students, are some of the aims of associations dedicated to the advancement of women in the commercial real estate world," says the research group.
Actually, in an article, Accommodating the Knowledge Workers of Tomorrow, ResearchWorldwide.com predicts that in three years American bachelor degree graduates would comprise 60 percent, with male graduates lagging behind at 40 percent. In fact, women bachelor degree graduates currently outnumber graduates in Australia, Canada, Denmark, Finland, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and the U.S.
"The synergy of using the total workforce in commercial real estate has proved to be very beneficial for the commercial real estate industry worldwide, ensuring improving performance for its occupiers, owners, financiers and support service industries and with more and more women entering this industry, these synergistic benefits will increase further," concludes ResearchWorldwide.com.
