Recognising women in real estate — Day 5

Across this week, we will share their answers with you.

Catherine Dixon, Phillips Pantzer Donnelley Woollahra director

What drew you to a career in real estate?

I had a law and architecture degree and had been consulting to help clients who were having trouble getting their DAs approved. I really enjoyed the autonomy of being a consultant and working with property owners, but I struggled dealing with the mindset of government agencies. There was no room or desire to find a solution or even move a little so that all parties could have a small win. I engaged an agent, Paul Cavarra, to sell my property in Paddington, and he mentioned I might be good at real estate. It was the first time I thought about it, and it resonated. I sensed it was an industry that could combine everything I loved about law/architecture/property but eliminate the part I found frustrating. That sense turned out to be spot-on, and 12 years later, I’m still enjoying those elements.

What is a challenge you faced, and how did you overcome it?

In the scheme of things, real estate is not a hard industry to succeed in. Basically, you build relationships, do the calls, and if you do that over and over again, then you will probably succeed. My biggest challenge has been being female in a male-dominated industry, and that challenge is reflected in all measures of real estate, and in turn, reinforces that challenge.

Most trainers and guest speakers at training seminars are men, most of the REB Top 100 are men, most awards are won by men and most powerful positions in real estate are held by men. This creates an environment either subtly or overtly depending on how aware the agency or organisation is, that real estate is a space for men and not women.

I know female agents who have worked in agencies where they are openly called the “temps” as an indication of how successful that agency expects them to be. So, the challenge for me is not the work nor the hours, but the mental challenge of working in an industry where I’m often the only, or one of the only, female-led teams and seeing young female agents being held back in assistant roles when they clearly have greater ambitions.

Overcoming this challenge has not been a huge effort because of my background. I grew up poor in a close-knit family where there was little career expectation because it was inconceivable that anyone from my family would go to university. Nobody had even finished high school. I think my parents hoped that I would enter a trade, and at various times, I was encouraged to interview for apprenticeships as a chef or a hairdresser. But I didn’t enjoy being poor and realised that the only thing I would ever have to rely on and never have taken away was an education, and so that is the road I took. That education along with a tougher than average upbringing taught me valuable lessons in terms of self-reliance, not listening to other people’s opinion of me and, most importantly, being financially independent, so I never have to do anything I don’t want to, or be with someone who is not good for me.

What goals and milestones do you have for your career?

I still really enjoy the problem-solving side and the relationship-building aspects of real estate, but my goal of financial independence is the same driver now as when I was 18 years old. This job, fortunately, allows me to achieve that.

Do you think real estate is a good industry for women to work in?

We are, in many ways, a deeply unprincipled industry when it comes to gender and race. One of the questions I ask the guys working with me periodically is to imagine what it would be like for them to come to work and rarely see a man in a powerful, more successful or educational position in real estate than them? Imagine going to sales meetings every week and hearing male voices and opinions taking up 90 per cent of the airspace. It makes them think about how weird that would really be and question if they didn’t have male mentors or couldn’t see other men being successful at what they were doing, could they actually keep up the motivation to do it themselves?

I see that environment as the greatest challenge for the success of young female agents coming up the ranks. It is all pervasive and yet at times so subtle, that unless the agent is woke to it, she will become implicit in its perpetuation and protection of male power, only to realise too late in her career that those in power will rarely share it no matter how much the woman has helped them along the way.

I once worked in an agency where I started a female sales agent group to encourage referrals and talk about ways to become more successful. That simple concept was considered so subversive that it was seriously suggested to us that a man should sit in on each of the meetings. When this was refused, we were told a management representative would attend. That a group of female agents meeting to discuss real estate could be so threatening to successful male agents was not surprising, but most disappointing was that they inflamed the situation so much that the young female agents wouldn’t attend, and I really couldn’t blame them.

Another issue embedded in real estate is the connection between machismo and sexual harassment. Macho behaviour is still seen by many to be something integral to success in real estate, and too many studies, to mention, have confirmed the connection between macho behaviour and the acceptance of sexism, sexual harassment and violence against women. This has been highlighted recently by an agent whose history of sexual harassment had not only been protected for many years by his agency, but victims, paid off. Only intense pressure from outside of the industry appeared to result in his dismissal, and now he has re-invented himself in an auxiliary position to real estate. The mere fact that literally hundreds of men and women within real estate feel comfortable to put their words of encouragement on his Facebook page and support his new business is worrying, considering the level of violence we are seeing against women and minorities in Australia.

The only way the real estate industry can improve, like any industry or society, is for men to believe that they will gain and not lose by having full female participation at every level. We know that studies as far back as the 1960s have found that equal female participation at leadership raises the collective IQ and the profits of nations and businesses. But it’s hard for anyone who has been so used to a level of entitlement to accept that, because on a micro level they see equality as a loss of privilege and something to fight against. The industry needs good men who can understand we all win with adversity, to stand up and join women and minorities who want nothing more than an equal chance at success based on merit, and not on who you know, or how your gender or race is perceived.