If there’s one thing Candice Milano and Malessa Rambarran want people to know about real estate, it’s that you can do what they do. The “you,” in their case applying pointedly to women, especially those who haven’t yet entered the field.
As a testament to their goal, the two brokers who comprise the Milano-Rambarran team at Halstead, founded WIRRE, Women in Residential Real Estate, and, in a little more than a year, have amassed a significant following in and around New York City.
What separates WIRRE from other organizations of its ilk is not that they cater specifically to helping women in real estate — there are other organizations by similar names who also champion that cause — but the scope of women they’re interested in helping.
“Our events are about real estate, and the topics have been done, but the people that are invited to our events are only our clients, and it’s a room filled with very affluent people, but it’s first-time home buyers,” said Rambarran.
The goal of WIRRE is to not only to introduce clients, particularly women, to how real estate works, but use that knowledge as a tool to build wealth and parlay their property into a long-term asset.
“The saying is that we can either give someone a fish and they’ll eat for a day, or teach them how to fish,” said Rambarran. “That’s really the goal. It’s not just about buying a property to live in, it’s about finding value.”
According to the team, who are transitioning into their new roles from their previous positions at Corcoran, that mission statement has resonated loudly with more people than expected. WIRRE now has thousands of members and is planning a new series of events that are in the pipeline for 2019.
For one event this year, the group chartered a yacht to cruise the Hudson Rivers with 80 guests and a panel of real estate professionals who illuminated attendees during a moderated discussion.
For WIRRE, the timing may be impeccable. Concurrently, in the world of residential real estate, home ownership among women is also going through a shift. While the overall rates of single women’s home ownership is still low compared to married couples, according to the National Association of Realtors, it has trended upward with 17 percent of homebuyers in 2017 being single women compared to only seven percent men.
Behind the shift has been the rise in women’s wages — which still lag behind their male counterparts — changing demographics, and societal changes that have reduced stigma about single women’s’ homeownership and lifestyle.
According to Milano and Rambarran , as women in the world of real estate, the mission behind WIRRE hits home in a more personal way.
“Being women in real estate ourselves, we’re going through an experience together,” said Rambarran. “It’s important for us to be champions for ourselves. We want to be able to share our knowledge. We want to be able to stand up and be a source of power for other women.”
For Milano and Rambarran, empowering women may come more naturally than others, since helping out women — in their immediate case, each other — is baked right into their jobs.
According to Rambarran, the synergy between her and her business partner makes their team dynamics not only productive, but natural.
“Our dynamic is that we’re very close and we have strengths that are similar,” said Rambarran. “For the most part, we are on the same page and have the same passion.”
While Rambarran has a background in journalism, having worked for Fortune’s Small Business magazine, Milano has a degree in business, and both worked together at Corcoran where they forged their partnership.
This strategy of partnering up is one that not only worked for them, but a method that they say is important for others looking to do the same thing. Like WIRRE, which looks to galvanize women of all experience levels, the team has found success in uniting their expertise with each other and also peers in the field. Without teamwork and role models along the way, the two wouldn’t have made it, they said.
“Aligning [yourself] with a team that they can really learn and having the right partner is super important,” said Milano. “We couldn’t have achieved what we have without that.”
