Flexible scheduling, high earnings potential and ease of entry into the industry has boosted the presence of women in the real estate business.
The National Association of Realtors report women outnumber men in two of three licensing categories and are near parity in the third. The recent study is the first to collect such data.
“There is no glass ceiling for women in real estate,” said Charlotte, N.C., Realtor Pat O’Connor. She is president and co-owner with her husband of Mary Ryder Realty, one of Charlotte’s largest real estate firms.
The NAR reports that the typical Realtor is a 49-year-old, college- educated woman whose compensation accounts for 67 percent of her household income.
The study revealed that women make up 68 percent of sales agents-Realtors who are licensed only to work for a broker. Women account for 60 percent of broker-associates-Realtors who are licensed to operate independently but choose to work for another broker. Women are 47 percent of brokers-Realtors who own their own businesses.
The study’s results are not surprising, observers say. Women have flooded the industry, attracted by its flexible scheduling and income potential. A growing number of women are rising to the top by starting their own businesses.
“The real estate business is really an entrepreneurial business, and the start-up costs are really low compared to other businesses,” said Laurie Moore, a consultant and co-publisher of Real Trends, a trade magazine based in Dallas.
Real estate is relatively easy to get into and “there’s no limit on what you can make,” said Moore.
Diana Tuite of Charlotte gave up the classroom for a real estate office four years ago because “I honestly couldn’t make any money teaching.”
Although she looked into banking and government jobs, Tuite said she ultimately picked real estate because of its lack of hierarchy and bureaucracy.
“I didn’t want to get locked into a system and advance at someone else’s pace,” Tuite said. The former president of the Charlotte chapter of the Women’s Council of Realtors says she doubled her income in her first year.
“It’s a job that doesn’t have any boundaries to it,” Tuite said. “You can accelerate at your own pace.”
Women in the industry say they’ve overcome many obstacles.
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Muriel Helms, a former homemaker who entered the work force 22 years ago as a real estate sales agent, remembers prospective clients who assumed she was a secretary. Others insisted on speaking to a man even after discovering she was a licensed agent.
Helms, now the president of Prudential Carolinas Realty in Charlotte, turned those situations into referrals for her male colleagues. The colleagues would get the commission, and Helms would get a share for the referral.
“It wasn’t all in vain,” Helms said. She earned enough to open a firm with a partner in 1978. She later sold it to Merrill Lynch, which in turn sold it to Prudential Insurance Co. of America. She and four partners repurchased the business from Prudential in 1990.
The industry attracts women who “want to control their destiny,” said Helms, who employs more than 250 people in Charlotte and more than 1,000 in the Carolinas.
Once in the industry, women often rise quickly because most real estate firms are small and have very flat organizational structures, said Ray Smith, a professor at the Darden Graduate School of Business Administration at the University of Virginia.
Smith said women have done especially well in the residential market in part because women traditionally play an important role in home-buying decisions.
In commercial real estate, where many of the clients are male, women have made slower progress, said Smith, who specializes in entrepreneurship and real estate management.
Helms said many women are adept at understanding emotional factors in buying a home.
“It’s a people business and women are very sensitive to the emotions families go through in moving,” Helms said.