The Boss? You’re Looking at Her: 7 Women in the Building Business
In the male-dominated real estate universe, the hard hat can be a hard hat to wear.
“If I’m at an inspection, and a guy is putting me down a bit, I don’t worry about it. I know I’m good at what I do,” said Dina Miller, a founder and the chief operating officer of the real estate appraisal firm Miller Samuel. Credit George Etheredge for The New York Times
Property Appraisal
In 1986, when Dina Miller, her brother, Jonathan, and other family members founded the real estate appraisal firm Miller Samuel, “there were very few female appraisers,” said Ms. Miller, 56, whose specialty is specialty work — determining the value of a common hallway that a co-op shareholder wants to buy, for example, and handling stratospherically expensive property, including the top-floor apartment at 432 Park Avenue.
“The high-end and the unique are difficult to appraise. Obviously, there’s nothing to compare them to,” Ms. Miller said. “It’s not like a one-bedroom, where there are half a dozen similar sales in a building. You have to know the market and the nuances. I like that challenge.”
And, of course, like a doctor who goes to a party and is buttonholed by strangers with questions about their ailments, Ms. Miller is frequently quizzed by friends about the value of their real estate. “They’ll say to me, ‘What is the market doing? What is my apartment worth? Do you think it’s listed too high?’ I’m happy to give them insight.”
Sometimes, however, she is the one being appraised. “There’s the attitude of ‘Here comes this woman and what does she know?’ Fifteen years ago, I went to a high-end apartment and the wife opened the door. She looked at me, looked around to see if there was a man with me, then turned to her husband and said, ‘Look, honey, it’s a female appraiser,’ as if I were from the circus.”
Matters have improved, because there are more female appraisers now, Ms. Miller said. “But you have some people who are very old school.”
When, for example, she is on a site with a male trainee, “clients will often think the trainee is my boss,” Ms. Miller said. Questions about when the appraisal will be ready or whether they know about other sales in the building will be directed to the man.
“We have to correct people and explain that he’s in training and I’m the owner of the company,” she said.
“As time goes on men are getting used to having strong women in their lives whether as family member or colleagues, and it’s no longer unique for a man to have a woman boss,” said Leslie Winkler, president of Halstead Management.CreditGeorge Etheredge for The New York Times