Housing Affordability: Time to Move from Talk to Traction
In the wake of some press coverage of my recent termination, a friend lamented that I was relieved of my responsibilities in my “peak earning years.” I recall bristling at the term.
I have never been financially motivated, which is why I left Silicon Valley and then Wall Street. To me, money is for helping people, nothing more, nothing less. I have a bicycle, not a car; one house, no boat. My idea of indulgence is a long morning walk with AirPods, Audible, and iced tea. But the statement echoed in my mind for weeks, and I was unsure why.
Then it hit me: I do not care about peak earnings, though I care tremendously about peak impact. With Coldwell Banker, I was fortunate to have high frequency impact, helping dozens or hundreds of our people in some small way daily. I also had a platform to share thoughts on improving the industry and making housing more fair and attainable. We did good work, and we worked toward good.
If these are my peak impact years, and if I can no longer achieve impact with and through the most excellent firm in real estate, I asked myself how I will accelerate my positive impact on one of the most fundamental societal needs: housing affordability.
CHANGE
A little over a decade ago, my dear friend and I founded a boutique real estate development and consulting firm, btcRE, to be the change we wanted to see in real estate, reimagining the built environment with passion, integrity, collaboration, transparency, and creativity as our core values.
btcRE was built on a foundation of uncompromising integrity. At a crucial moment at the outset of our first major project, we were forced to choose between risking near-certain financial ruin and violating our values — and it was no choice at all. Deeply held values make difficult decisions easier.
Fortunately, our community rallied to our side, and we averted the ruin we were prepared to face, integrity intact — indeed, mettle tested is mettle strengthened. We went on to develop dynamic environments for makers and entrepreneurs who are now creating and growing in revitalized brick-and-beam structures surrounding Boston.
We are again at a formative stage, embarking on an ambitious yet uncertain path. After steering clear of residential development to avoid any perception of conflict with my work at Coldwell Banker, the path home has been cleared — not by choice, yet cleared nonetheless.
HOME
In 2023, we at btcRE will explore the next phase of our community impact, focused on affordable, accessible, and equitable housing.
Home affects everything. Home is safety, security, and community. Home is where lifelong friendships begin, families gather, and important moments are celebrated. Home truly is where the heart is.
When neighborhoods lack broad diversity, truly mutual understanding is impossible. When access to housing is not equitable, access to opportunity is unequal. And when the roof over one’s head is insecure, even total certainty in every other aspect of life may not be enough to thrive.
Centuries of systemic discrimination — from deeded racial covenants to redlining to more insidious methods — have ingrained generational disparities. More recent local, state, and federal regulations are sometimes well-intentioned yet misguided and incohesive, further restricting entry-level supply and pushing quality housing options further out of reach.
While some debate the power and value of home ownership to residents, communities, and our country, I do not. That data is clear. Yet ownership remains elusive for entire segments of our nation. This need not be the case.
For those of limited means, an inability to fund minor repairs while they remain minor often leads to major health and safety risks and even foreclosure or eviction. Inefficient construction drives up energy bills and adds to climate chaos. Unbalanced transportation infrastructure investments create a cost chasm between home and work, school, or services. Too many choose monthly between rent and groceries… or medicine.
Barriers between housing needs and availability grow daily. Common sense approaches have been rendered impractical — as the places we love most are now illegal or infeasible to recreate — and the negative consequences are far-reaching. New approaches are needed.
We at btcRE are excited to bring expertise in site redevelopment, transactional complexity, legislative and regulatory work, coaching and mentoring, stakeholder conflict resolution, and community collaboration to bear on such a massive — and massively important — challenge.
We will redevelop properties to create housing that is affordable in every respect, including access to efficient energy, transportation, and even grocery alternatives. We will accept advisory appointments, investment opportunities, and even speaking engagements with housing organizations that share our values to forward the mission. We will be vocal and relentless advocates for logical policy improvements that transcend politics to deliver on the promise of shelter for all.
COLLABORATION
We come to this moment with confidence, not arrogance. In addition to co-developing with those we hope to serve, we will listen to and learn from a broad coalition as we craft our plans, from academics to activists, practitioners to politicians. We anticipate a year filled with research, planning, consultation, and ultimately the launch of btcRE’s newest, most aspirational, and most inspirational area of focus.
We believe housing affordability suffers from a crisis of collaboration. Ideas and intention abound, though alignment and coordination remain elusive. We will partner with like-minded entrepreneurs and non-profits, and embrace and grow from those who challenge our thinking. We will advise and invest in mission-driven organizations in the housing sector and break physical and metaphorical ground ourselves.
We realize authentic leadership in any field is earned, not given. We seek to lead by example as developers, investors, advisors, and managers.
With CB, nearly every good idea for which I was given credit in the press came from those doing the work daily in the field — our agents, our brokers, and those who serve them — not from me. I merely had the patience to listen and the position to amplify promising voices over the din.
I expect the same with btcRE. We know the solutions are out there already; our job is to find them, credit them appropriately, and execute them at scale. If you have suggestions, questions, recommendations, or introductions related to making the American dream more possible, please reach out.
MISSION
Among the many things my time with CB has solidified in my heart and mind: I am driven by service, and integrity means everything to me. I absolutely crave a community to serve, and I will not give an inch on ethics. I am a missionary, not a mercenary, and I look forward to this next mission to benefit communities I am eager to serve with a partner I trust completely.
Coldwell Banker was founded in 1906 to bring honesty, integrity, and service to real estate, with the industry’s first code of ethics that sought to eliminate critical conflicts of interest. While I was blessed to call Coldwell Banker home, our founding principles inspired me daily, and I did not take a moment of my CB service for granted.
Exactly one century after CB’s debut, Realogy was created with ethics laced into the culture, resulting in eleven straight years of being named among the World’s Most Ethical Companies by Ethisphere. I will forever be proud of my minor yet unyielding contributions to Realogy’s ethical culture.
To me, in all things, personally and professionally, integrity is non-negotiable, and there is no materiality threshold on doing the right thing. The values of Coldwell Banker and Realogy always aligned with this worldview.
GRATITUDE
This brings me to gratitude and the best advice I have recently received: be happy for the time we had, not sad it has ended.
I am positively bursting with gratitude for our time together. I have countless fond memories, a tremendous sense of collective accomplishment, and a richness of friendships beyond measure. I am forever indebted to Coldwell Banker.
It has been an honor and a privilege to serve and to celebrate more than 100,000 of the finest entrepreneurs in the business as we raised the industry’s bar together each day, and broke nearly every long-standing record along the way.
And so, to my cherished friends with Coldwell Banker, I want to say thank you for the most extraordinary years a servant-leader could desire. In my wildest dreams, I could not have imagined a more perfect role, where I could be helpful to those I love — and it is love — nearly every minute of every day.
And thank you to all those who reached out to me in early December — more than 10,000 of you! Just before Christmas, I joked to my wife that I was starting to feel like George Bailey at the end of my favorite movie, It’s a Wonderful Life… then my voice cracked as my eyes grew misty, and I realized I wasn’t joking at all… Thank you, CB!!
