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Leadership is more than just a skill; it’s a value that becomes ingrained when acquired. This episode features another great leader, Sara Sutachan. She is the Senior Vice President of Member Information for the California Association of REALTORS®. As head of the department, she is highly involved in the association’s strategic planning. Sara has successfully created several programs and strategic initiatives for its members. In this episode, she talks to Bill Risser about what is happening in the CHR. Listen in to know more about the changes she’s seen in the industry and what she aims to improve moving forward.
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California Association Of Realtors: Real estate associations are unique because the board is so large, which allows for a lot of power in policy initiatives.[/caption]
I grew up in San Diego. I was there for almost 40 years. Earthquakes were a part of my life and your life growing up. They were a part of it. You talk to people back East who go through hurricanes and tornadoes, but earthquakes freak them out even more. You went to Cal State Northridge at one point in time. In Northridge, there was an earthquake in the early '90s, '91 or '92. Was that a part of your life? Were you in town at that time? I know it was early in the morning.
It's funny you ask. I remember vividly I graduated high school in 1993, but that earthquake was in '94. I was still living at home and I had younger siblings. I remember trying to run in the house while it was moving and I swear to God, I felt like I was not moving anywhere. The floor was going under. It disappeared. I was running it and not moving. It was weird.
I went to take care of my younger siblings and I stuffed them under the bed. I did everything you shouldn't do in an earthquake. I got them secured. I wasn't smart about it, but we didn't stand under a doorway. Growing up, we used to have these earthquake drills where you would go under your desk and hold on, so I didn't do that. I stuffed them under a secure bed. They were little. We had a lot of earthquake damage and there were so many people.
There was that apartment that crushed people. It was scary. The whole neighborhood got together and helped each other turn their gas off. It was a community-building experience I have to say. It was funny. My parents are divorced and we ended up staying at my dad and stepmom's house. My mom being at her ex-husband and new wife's house. It was weird, but it was a community. We were all in it together.
It's what people had to do. I'm old enough to remember 1971, another big one up in the LA area. I was sitting on the ground. I was ten years old at the time. All I remember is there's a gopher coming up to bite me, but it wasn't. It was the ground shaking.
It's so weird. You can't even explain it unless you've been through it. My grandmother was from Florida. She was from the New England area and she retired in Florida, and then when she couldn't live by herself, she moved in with us. She couldn't stand not knowing when an earthquake was coming. She didn't stay very long in California.
Hurricanes are the opposite. For four days, you're waiting for it to get there.
In her opinion, at least you knew it was coming. That's the unknown with earthquakes.
I found something interesting in your background and I have to talk about this. This is my favorite part of the show. For a number of years, you worked at AutoZone. A great job for someone right out of high school or young. Working at an AutoZone can set you up for life because you know stuff about cars and you won't be that person that didn't know anything about an engine, cars, or whatever. Is that true?
My claim to fame now is how to change my wiper blades. When in those rare occasions that it would rain in Southern California, I would change wiper blades at AutoZone. My kids love to tease me about AutoZone. They're like, "Get in the zone, AutoZone." It was a good experience. I agree with you. It taught me about standing up for myself being strong and a lot of times, a woman working at an auto parts place gets underestimated. It set me up and it strengthened the future of my career.
That's cool that crossover happened.
You're the only one that has asked me about AutoZone in my many years in the career at CAR.
[bctt tweet="It is so important to build up the women we see as future leaders, tap them on the shoulder, and talk about them behind their backs in a positive way." username="billrisser"]
You graduate from Cal State Northridge. Not very long after graduation that you start with the California Association of REALTORS. What was that impetus? What drew you into them?
What's not in my LinkedIn and I hid this for a long time because I thought it was shameful. I worked for a commercial real estate broker for a hot minute after college and I hated it. I hated the environment. I hated the people I worked with, no disrespect. It was not the right place for me. I didn't put that on my LinkedIn. I didn't put that on my resume. I didn't even tell the people at CAR that I worked for a real commercial real estate broker because I didn't last very long. It was an embarrassment on my resume, but I will say what it did for me was taught me what I didn't want to do in the real estate side.
I did not want to be in the commercial. I very quickly met Leslie Appleton-Young. I was like, "I know what I don't want, but she's who I want to work for. I want to be like her. I want to be her. I want to know her. I want to learn from her." That's why I got started at CAR. I was very green right out of college. I was taken by this fabulous woman who was boss in her own right and getting stuffed on. That's how I got started at CAR. That was several years ago. I started as an entry-level researcher. I was a data nerd. I call myself a recovering economist.
You say that, but you got your Master's in Economics.
I did. For many years, I was a research economist for the trade association. I am rooted in the data. It is what every single one of my initiatives is based on. It's looking at the data and spotting an opportunity in that data. That sounds geeky, but you can't argue with statistics. WomanUP is one example of that. When we look at the percentage of women in this industry, it's the majority by far 67% to 70% of realtors are women across the country, but when you look at the brokerage firms, the CEOs, the broker-owners, or principals, it was mainly men. Based on the data, we were able to create this initiative to help women take that next step in their careers. That is how I base everything. It's all rooted in data and facts.
That'll be a part of your life forever. I'm sure once a data nerd, always a data nerd.
I went the safer route in the industry and I have to give a huge shoutout to realtors who are pushing pavement every day and doing the work. I was so scared to go into that side of it and didn't like the commercial side. I didn't know if I wanted to sell and live on commission, so I took the safer route with the data.
Whenever I talk to anyone at a high level with associations, it's an entirely different way of looking at work because it's a nonprofit, and there's a board that's very much in control of the CEO position. If they decide that they want to make a change or move in a different direction, they can do that thing. You don't see it very often.
It happens rarely, but it's there that the CEO annually has to do the things that the board wants to accomplish. At the same time, especially with CAR, I can't even imagine the size of the staff, and all those other things that are going on. The strat planning is every year. There's all this stuff that's so involved in a nonprofit, especially that size.
We're very unique. Real estate associations are unique because our board is so large, but that also gives us such power in our policy initiatives. We have 800 people on our board of directors in California and that is profound. We are the largest business group in Sacramento. They call us the realtors and that gives us a lot of political goodwill and power.
We stay super focused on real estate. We stay in our lane when it comes to our legislative priorities and what that means for realtors. That does give you a lot of political goodwill and clout, but in terms of our board of directors, it's not like a for-profit company where you have twelve people on the board, a CEO, and a chairman. It's a little bit different dynamic, but it is a team.
We have a leadership team that's elected and then we have our CEO and our executive staff. We have five department heads and I'm one of them. It's a very close-knit relationship. We have a new CEO that came onboard in 2021. Joel Singer, who was our CEO for 30 plus years retired, a mentor and friend. He gave me a call. It was so nice to talk to him.
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California Association Of Realtors: Having a lot of voices is a great thing when you're looking at big, broad issues that impact the real estate industry.[/caption]
It is a different dynamic. It taught me the importance of collaboration and teamwork being in that environment for so long. We have a lot of voices and that's a great thing when you're looking at big broad issues that impact realtors, the real estate industry, and homeownership in communities across, I would say, California, but across the country.
You're your primary customer are realtors in California, in your association. You talked about homeownership which directly affects and impacts, a ton of consumers as well. How do you handle those two different pieces of the puzzle? Is the majority of the focus going to be on realtors, taking care of their needs, and making sure that they're moving in the right direction for them?
As a trade association for realtors, that is our mission. We stay focused on that mission. We do have a consumer ad campaign to bring to light what a realtor does for consumers, but we are not confused as to who we serve. We serve realtors. Our mission is to make sure that the realtors make money, that's their bottom line, that is our whole mission, but also preserving private property rights through collective action, and that is our action in Sacramento in California.
Also, we do federal lobbying as well. We're unique in that regard because we're so big, we do have a federal lobbying arm. This colleague of mine, anytime I want to know about what's going on in federal politics, I talked to him about it because he's so well-versed. There are certain policy implications for California that happened at the federal level that are different and wouldn't happen for other states or smaller states for that matter. It's a very important piece of what we do.
How big is CAR at the moment? It's massive, I know that but how many members?
CAR has 211,000 members. I think 212 is our forecast for this year. I will say Florida surpassed us by a couple of thousand realtors. I would like to encourage more Californian realtors to join us. We have 136 staff. We have 800 board members, as I mentioned. We have four leadership teams, we have our President, Otto Catrina, President-Elect Jennifer Branchini, Treasurer, Heather Ozur, and CEO, John Sebree.
1.6 million realtors in the country and you're telling me 450,000 of those over a quarter or in two states between California and Florida.
That doesn't even include licensees in California. We have doubled that. We have 450,000 licensees in California because everybody wants to say they have a California Real Estate License. Who wouldn't want to have a California Real Estate License?
I always speak highly of California. I defend it regularly.
We have so many challenges in the state. I was talking to Bob McKinnon. He says, hi, by the way, but he said, "We're taking all of your Californians in Texas." We have our set of challenges, but people come for the weather and they stay because it's beautiful.
No better weather in the world. In your role as the Senior Vice President of Member Information, what's your role now, and what's your biggest challenge?
I lead my award-winning team of 11. It includes our research division as I mentioned, I'm a research geek. Our long-term strategic planning for the association. We educate realtors on fair housing. We have the ultimate goal of equitable access to homeownership through research data. We have a financial literacy arm.
[bctt tweet="The beautiful thing that came out from the acceleration of technology is the ability of industries to be flexible, embrace it, and use it on a day-to-day basis." username="billrisser"]
I also oversee our charitable arm, Housing Affordability Fund, which I'm so proud to announce that we created our first-ever statewide closing cost assistance grant for underserved communities. That's big. We have WomanUp. We have Latino Professionals Network. I worked directly with the CEO, the CFO, and our strategic planning committee to make sure that our budget and our strategic plan are on point, outward-facing, looking out long-term, and how that affects and will affect our members.
We have to talk a little bit more about WomanUP. I'm close friends with Molly McKinley, who's been active there. Debra Trappen is somebody who I've known for many years through the Inman circles. Tami Bonnell is aligned and connected there as well. It's got so much more reach. It's something that started at CAR, but the reach has been nationwide. I'd love to chat about that.
It's grown so vast and quickly across the industry and nation. We have to give kudos to our national partners, RateMyAgent is one. Thank you so much. Tami Bonnell is a huge proponent. We have Realogy and Engel & Völkers. We have huge real estate national and international real estate companies that are supportive and have latched onto the movement and have started their own. It's a conversation that needed to be started, had, and continued.
You talked about what it was like in commercial real estate, and you found out quickly how that's a good old boy network. How do you affect change there? What are some of the things you can do?
We started the conversation. Coming to our WomanUp, listening in to these conversations of powerful leaders that we have on our stage, that's a start. I also think advocacy for women is so important. I am a big proponent of supporting, empowering, and building women up when they're not in the room. That is the number one thing.
We can all be doing sisters, brothers, however, you want to call it, but it is so important to build up the women that we see as future leaders, to tap them on the shoulder, to talk about them behind their backs in a positive way. That's the way to do it. It's through this community, conversations that we have, the words that we use, the role models that we highlight, and the support that we give one another is so important.
The awareness that comes out of there is pretty special. I'm able to follow it and attended a couple of things. I would recommend to everybody if you're at a conference somewhere, and you see on the agenda WomanUP, go check it out. It's very cool.
Contrary to popular belief will tell you, men are welcomed. They're not shunned or shamed away. That's the whole point. Men are at the table and men can be the best advocates for women.
One of your responsibilities is connecting with broker-owners and following the emerging trends in the industry are. During the pandemic, I would ask every guest, were you expecting that result for the real estate industry in March of 2020? I'll ask you that question too because I am waiting for the first person to go. "I had it nailed. I knew exactly what was going to happen." Are there any trends as we come out that is something we should know or surprise you?
First of all, no, we didn't have it nailed. However, we were well-positioned given that we have such a close tie to the industry. It's such a close tie to brokers that we were able to respond right away. I started a Friday call with California brokers. We went down into lockdown on March 13th,...
