10 Facts About Women's Real Estate History

March is Women's History Month, and the real estate industry has a long history of empowering women. Take a look at these 10 facts in celebration of this occasion.

March 16, 2021

Women have been part of the real estate industry since its beginning in the late 1700s. But in the early days, they mostly performed admin duties. By the late 1800s, women slowly started to move into the roles of brokers and agents.
According to the National Association of REALTORS® (NAR) history of women in real estate, when the Association first started in 1908, its membership was entirely male, despite 3,000 women working as brokers nationally.
NAR's first female member joined in 1910. She was a broker from Seattle, Washington named Corrine Simpson.
While NAR didn't bar women from joining, most local Associations did. Until the 1950s women were also restricted from being part of real estate boards. For these reasons, the Women's Council of REALTORS® was established in 1938.
By 1978, women made up the majority of NAR's membership.
Single women are 2x more likely to buy homes than single men.
2/3 of REALTORS® helping homebuyers are women.
According to NAR, as of May 2018, 63% of all REALTORS® are female.
Despite making up the majority of the industry, women don't often make it into executive positions. According to the Urban Land Institute’s 2015 survey of women in leadership, only 14% of real estate CEOs were women, contributing to the wage gap in the industry.
In 2019, DMAR hosted its first Wired (Women in Real Estate Denver) Summit to continue empowering women in the industry. It was an amazing event and our first follow-up will be in fall of 2021! Stay tuned for more.