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Leading Black Realtors
Looking at the most recent data from the US Census Bureau, less than 6% of all real estate professionals are Black. This is quite a small number as compared to 74.6% who are White and 8.79% who are Hispanic.
After the racial justice movement in 2020, NAREB the National Association of Real Estate Brokers partnered with HomeLight, a real estate platform company based in San Francisco, CA in order to increase the number of Black real estate agents who operate in the US.
This partnership resulted in the launch of the Black Real Estate Agent Program, which will provide financial and educational support to aspiring agents. The aim of this initiative is to close the income and racial gap in the real estate industry and as a result, lead to an increase in the Black homeownership rates.
Here are some of the leading Black realtors in the US.
Ila Corcoran
Ila's real estate career started off after her family experienced foreclosure. Her path in this industry has taken many forms. She started out in apartment management and leasing, moved to commercial real estate space and then finally found her passion working within the residential industry. Real estate was a path that she chose to explore because she wanted to work in an industry that would propel her into the opportunities systematically unavailable to her community.
For 2 years, she worked closely with homeowners and real estate professionals in order to help them maximize their investments and avoid the threats of discount buyers and/or foreclosure. In 2021 alone, she led a team to close more than $80m in transaction volume across numerous states.
In 2022, she has re-opened her schedule and is taking in new clients who are interested in working on their real estate needs and or financial goals.
Taylor Sledge
Taylor is a real estate agent who specializes in the Southern California housing market. Her interest in real estate came about during grade school as a result of spending weekends with her stepfather. They would explore the beautiful homes in the opulent neighborhoods of Long Beach, like Bixby Knolls.
She obtained her Real Estate License during her final year of undergrad at California State University of Long Beach, where she also received a Bachelor’s of Science in Criminal Justice .
Taylor loves a good challenge. Because of this, she is constantly researching and looking up new markets to expand her knowledge base, so that she can serve clients throughout all of Southern California at a high level.
Before joining Bay Street Capital Holdings, Taylor was the Chief of Staff of a boutique real estate investment firm and the Community Manager of Vector90, a co-working space in the Crenshaw District of South Los Angeles.
During her spare time, Taylor enjoys roller skating, spending time with family and keeping up with the latest binge worthy series.
Arial Pegues
Arial is a licensed realtor in Maryland, the District of Columbia and Virginia commonly known as the DMV. Within the real estate field, her specialty is in working with first-time homebuyers, luxury residential resale, short sales, foreclosures, rentals, investment properties and distressed property. She is a resident of the DC metropolitan area where she has also worked for over 20 years. With 13+ years of experience in real estate, Arial has a strong background in customer service and she is very dedicated to her clients by demonstrating professionalism, integrity and hard work.
She was voted as one of DMV’s Top 25 Realtors To Know in 2018. She earned the highest Platinum Honor through Prince Georges County Association of Realtors. In her company, she has made the top sales list numerous times countrywide. Earlier on in her life, she worked as a lobbyist on Capitol Hill for the top 100 banks in the country.
When she's not wearing her real estate hat, Arial enjoys volunteering in public schools as a coach/tennis instructor, providing free lessons to kids around the DMV. FAMOUS FEMALE REALTORS IN CALIFORNIA
Arnita Greene
Arnita is an accomplished realtor at Compass and she's also the lead agent at The Greene Property Group, which is a real estate company that's associated with Compass.
She is a dedicated and enthusiastic realtor who combines her unmatched business skills and family-driven approach in order to deliver the best results to her clients. She has a great understanding of the needs of working professionals and their families. She continues to thrive in different sales environments and her specialties are in short sales, new home buyers, foreclosures and new home builder sales.
Arnita is a 2020 Washingtonian magazine top agent, sits on the Prince Georges’s County Association of Realtors Board of Directors, featured agent on Fox 5 DC Morning on WTTG with Angie Goff, Number 1 individual agent 2017 and 2018.
Ernestine Johnson and Johnetta G. Paye
Ernestine Johnson and Johnetta G. Paye are the two Black female realtors who play the main role in Tulsa Real Estate Fund (TREF). TREF is the first African American-Owned real estate crowdfunding platform. Johnson is the co-founder and chief communications officer while Paye acts as lead counsel and VP of business affairs.
TREF was founded to help individuals in low-income neighborhoods tackle gentrification by making real estate investments at as low as $500. This would enable communities in these neighborhoods to have access to affordable housing.
To get her start in real estate, Johnson began by investing in run-down homes in Atlanta. Among the challenges that she faced in her career was people telling her that she couldn't achieve what she wanted to. However, she quickly learned how to create her own doors and create a path for others. She works by identifying gaps in the market and then she comes up with a way to fill them.
She co-founded the Tulsa Real Estate Fund together with her husband in order to educate people in underserved and working-class communities on financial empowerment and financial literacy. Out of the need to change her life as a person brought up in a low-income, high-rise housing complex, she has now become one of the successful women in the real estate business.
Keith James
Keith is a bold and charismatic individual, with a go-getter attitude. He is the Managing Partner at Coalition Properties Group. The real estate group aims to be the bridge to the community for all things real estate, lifestyle and wealth-building.
He was born in Northern Mississippi and was always a young achiever. Growing up, he spent his time traveling around the US playing in AAU basketball tournaments on most of the weekends. This experience gave him a broader perspective of the world around him. Keith is cognisant of the fact that the home buying process is a thrilling time for families as he fondly remembers how excited he was when he purchased his first home at 23 years old. He turned the home into an income-generating property, after which he acquired more property.
As an owner of real estate assets, his passion in life is to be the bridge through which people are able to acquire their dream homes. During his spare time, he enjoys spending time with his family, traveling and dining at the finest restaurants.
Koki Adasi
Koki, a Washington, DC native is a talented and dedicated real estate agent who's been involved in the real estate industry for 14 years. In 2008, Koki was recognized by REALTOR® Magazine as one of the thirty most talented, up-and-coming realtors in the U.S. In 2009 he provided real estate expertise on CNN's The Situation Room and NPR, and in 2010 he appeared on an episode of HGTV's television show House Hunters. He's also an active member of the National Association of REALTORS® (NAR).
Outside of his professional practice, Koki enjoys spending time with his family, volunteering or playing basketball during his spare time.
He has served on the Board of Directors for YMCA Youth & Family Services since 2006 and was recognized by the Greater Capital Area YMCA as Philanthropist of the Year in 2011.
McKenzie Ryan
Mckenzie is the founder of the Asset Advisory Team at Compass. Compass is a leading real estate company with a mission to help everybody in the world find their place. Previously, she was a national athlete trained for the Olympics as a top-tier Rhythmic Gymnast, for a huge part of her life. Aside from being a New York City historian, she's also a classically trained ballerina. While in high school, she made her first sale in real estate when she convinced her parents to buy a home in 2009 after showing them over 100 listings over the course of eight months in different neighborhoods. Even though the process took some time, she believed that through homeownership, her family would be able to achieve financial freedom.
Named as top New York Power Broker, the youngest broker ever to receive this recognition by Forbes, she leads her team in developing long-term strategies for their client's assets. With her unmatched work ethic and excellent negotiating skills, she often sells her clients' properties at full asking price while negotiating superb deals for her buyers.
She has also been recognized by Crain's Business New York as a star in the industry and appears regularly on CNN, in The New York Times, The Real Deal, Forbes, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Post and Domino Magazine.
As a former Olympian, Mckenzie continues to maintain her competitive spirit while still caring deeply about her clients' success and satisfaction. She is also very savvy with digital and social media and has amassed over 57,000 followers on Instagram. She lives in the West Village with her Shiba Inu, and dedicates her time to historic preservation and writing about and photographing historic buildings.
mTkalla Keaton
Born and bred in Brooklyn, New York mTkalla (pronounced T'kalla) was recently recognized as a top real estate broker. His passion for serving people as a Black real estate agent has enabled him close more than $100 million in sales transactions. With close to 20 years of experience in real estate, he's earned the trust of his clients, colleagues and community.
Before he joined E&V New York, he worked with Compass Real Estate. Prior to that, he worked at the Corcoran Group for 10 years where he was a member of the Multi-Million Dollar Club, the Silver Council. He has also been frequently recognized as a Top Ten Brooklyn Broker.
He is well versed with the intricacies of the New York real estate markets and has been able to be of service to both seasoned investors as well as first-time homeowners, with positive outcomes at the end of the day.
mTkalla is the founder of the SkyBridge Group, a team dedicated to superior service and building bridges to opportunities in South Africa.
Ryk Palmer
Ryk is not only a realtor but also the team lead at Palmer Property Group where he together with his team, serve their real estate clients in Maryland by providing them with high-level real estate services. Palmer Property Group is a Black-owned real estate group that provides both buyers and sellers with all the information and resources that they need in order to conduct business. They work with buyers and sellers in North Potomac, Clarksburg, Urbana, Gaithersburg, Bethesda and DC.
His specialties in this market are buyer's agent, listing agent, relocation and property management.
With a deep love for real estate, Ryk has managed to build his business around the simple concept of providing brokers and clients with the best service and unmatched work ethic in order to deliver an out of this world real estate experience every single time. With every single transaction that he's involved in, he is very keen on establishing and maintaining long-lasting relationships with his clients.
Tohmai Smith
Tohmai was born and raised in DC and he loves to show his neighborhood to different groups of people as he considers it a very vibrant community to build a life and raise a family. He is very passionate about securing the best deals for his clients who are looking to purchase their dream home or sell their previous one.
Being a DC native and having extensive knowledge of the metro DC real estate market, spanning from well-established neighborhoods like Georgetown all the way to upcoming ones like Congress Heights has helped him build a strong network of realtors. Together, they work on locating properties as well as potential buyers.
Over time he's also cultivated authentic relationships with his clients who trust him to find the perfect spaces for them at the best possible prices.
Toni Martin
Toni Martin is a Licensed Associate Real Estate Broker with Corcoran. She is among the Black real estate agents who have impeccable knowledge on the ins and outs of New York real estate. She acknowledges that buying or selling a home is a major decision as it's one of the ways of acquiring or preserving generational wealth. As a Black real estate agent, she helps her clients who are sellers market their properties at the most competitive price while finding the most qualified buyer(s) within the shortest time possible. For her clients who are looking to buy property, she carefully guides them through the complex process while negotiating the best possible deals, in order for them to be able to purchase their dream homes.
Toni has a keen understanding of property that ranges from condos to rentals, to residential all the way to commercial property. Her passion is to make her client's dream a reality through an efficient end to end process that is seamless.
She is extremely proud to have won the following accolades/awards, placing her in the top 1% of 47,000 agents nationwide.
Bay Street Capital Holdings
Bay Street Capital Holdings is an independent investment advisory, wealth management, and financial planning firm headquartered in Palo Alto, CA. They manage portfolios with the goal of maintaining and increasing total assets and income with a high priority on managing total risk and volatility. Although many advisors may focus on maximizing returns, they place a higher priority on managing total risk and volatility.
Our founder, William Huston founded Bay Street after 13 years of supporting the United States' largest retirement plan ($650B) Thrift Savings Plan. He is recognized as Investopedia’s Top 100 Financial Advisors for 2021. In California, only two black-owned firms out of nineteen firms received this recognition. In Scottsdale Arizona, Ekenna Anya-Gafu CFP, AAMS is recognized among the Best Financial Advisors for his responsiveness, friendliness, helpfulness, and detail. Bay Street was founded to advocate for diverse and emerging fund managers and entrepreneurs. In 2021, Bay Street was selected as a finalist out of over 900 firms across the US in the category of Asset Manager for Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR).
Sources
https://www.apartmenttherapy.com/black-real-estate-agent-program-36876449
http://www.arialdmvrealestate.com/about-me/
https://www.nareb.com/american-dream-homeownership-eludes-many-black-people-2/
https://www.coalitionpg.com/agent-profile/keith-james-103665236
https://www.compass.com/agents/koki-adasi/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/mckenzie-ryan
https://mtkallakeaton.evrealestate.com/bio/mTkallaKeaton
https://www.corcoran.com/real-estate-agents/toni-martin/9719/regionId=1
https://www.rlahre.com/agent/ryk-palmer/
https://www.homes.com/real-estate-agents/arnita-greene/id-6629203/
