Farrah Wilder, California Association of REALTOR®’s Chief Diversity, Equity,

FARRAH WILDER

on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion at the California Association of Realtors

For any organization that wants to progress forward, having a diverse workforce that feels is treated equally is a must!

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) especially at the top levels of management have shown to improve not just the mood of the employees or generally what they feel about the organization, but also it has been found to improve the financial footing of a business, according to a research published by McKinsey. The company’s research found that the companies where women made up more than 30 percent of executives outperformed the companies with fewer female representation in the top management by almost 50%. Additionally, the research further found that ethnically and culturally diverse organizations performed better by as much as 36% compared to those that shunned DEI policies and practices.

Seeing the importance of DEI to an organization, we decided to bring an expert on board to tell us more about why DEI is crucial for the survival of any business. Farrah Wilder is the California Association of REALTOR®’s Chief Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Officer. She supports C.A.R.’s fair housing and inclusion efforts. She collaborates with internal and external partners and key stakeholders including C.A.R. members, REALTOR® associations, and others on initiatives that will dramatically heighten awareness, allyship, equity, and capabilities within the REALTOR® community, the real estate industry, and beyond.

Prior to working for C.A.R, Farrah was a Realtor with Compass and the founder of a real estate team based in Oakland, California. Farrah served on the Boards of the Oakland and Oakland Berkeley Association of REALTORS® from 2014 through 2017 and was the 2018 Chair of C.A.R.’s Federal Committee.

Farrah was brought to C.A.R at a time when DEI was a really hot topic, especially coming on the backlog of cases of inequality in the justice system. She is also a volunteer leader whereby she has chaired a variety of committees, contributed to the development of residential real estate policy, and lobbied federal, state, and local lawmakers.

Previously, she served on the Boards of the Oakland and Oakland Berkeley Association of REALTORS® from 2014 through 2017 and was the 2018 Chair of C.A.R.’s Federal Committee. She is also active in her community, supporting local schools and causes.

Wilder earned a Bachelor of Arts in Sociology from the University of Michigan and a J.D. from the University of Wisconsin, Madison. She moved to Oakland 18 years ago to pursue a legal career, serving five years as a civil rights attorney, before becoming a REALTOR®.

Here is part of the interview Eric L. Frazier had with Farrah Wilder on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion.

Eric: What is your primary role in the organization and if you could also just tell us how you got there…

Farrah: So let’s start with how I got there.

I was a realtor for 13 years in Oakland California and many of my clients were people of color. I live in a very diverse community in Oakland, many of my clients were black folks buying their first home from the LGBTQ community but before that, I was a civil rights attorney and so I brought that kind of civil rights sensibility to my work. I was hosting first-time buyer affairs and the market crashed right after I started and it was an opportunity. I was letting folks know what the basics of buying a home were, really learning myself and then passing that information on to folks in the community about homebuyer programs and some of the maybe hidden costs or really how to do it and some strategies so that was the sensibility that I was really bringing to my work then.

I got involved on the local, the state, and the national realtor association board and I felt like it was really important. It’s really important anytime you represent a group, anytime you’re bringing a different perspective to share that perspective. I saw my role there is to look at the challenges in my community and bring them to the role of being on these board of directors because what else is my purpose for being there? … I had kind of stepped off of some of those official roles… but I still was very connected to the California Association of Realtors and the National Association of Realtors. They were asking for an impact on what can we do around racial injustice …. I was giving advice and talking and this position came up and I. it wasn’t something I was thinking I would do but I ended up applying… and here we are. I officially accepted the position or began the position last September it feels like it’s been five years at this point because so much has happened and so many powerful amazing things have happened in our community. We’re talking more about fair housing, we’re talking about race and racial disparities in ways that we frankly weren’t doing as much before. … I help support C.A.R in their fair housing policy efforts with government affairs and I work on diversity efforts; I help educate our members; I help support local associations around their diversity and fair housing efforts and I help strengthen our relationships with our multicultural trade association partners; I also do help internally with diversity efforts within our staff.

Eric: Farrah that’s a big job and I’m Noticing you’re not just an officer vice president but you are the chief diversity officer does that mean that you’re actually setting policy for the organization and moving them in the direction of diversity.

Farrah: That’s a great question. We are member-led and member-driven. We have an 850 member board which is a very large board

but we do take that seriously. My role is to make sure that we’re educated about that so when our members are making their decision, I help them with the information that they’re going to need to make their decisions, and then once we have a policy directly from our members, I help our government affairs staff package that and communicate it to the lawmakers.

Eric: … Farrah were you a real estate professional before you were an attorney or were you an attorney then you became a real estate professional?

Farrah: I was an attorney before I was a real estate professional and I was not a real estate attorney.

Eric: Wow! So what made you make that transition from working in civil rights as an attorney to selling real estate and doing homebuyer seminars?

Farrah: there’s a lot of former attorneys out there in the world and then also on the real estate side I think, it’s definitely not what you think it’s going to be on tv, but what I did have a sense of was that I would be able to represent clients and I was excited about the prospect of representing clients and then of course once I got into it, it was much more challenging than I realized which is a good thing I was able to really hone some skills and get into making sure that clients were really well represented there are compliance things to understand and I really took that role seriously. I think I was excited about the client representation I thought I was going to be really flexible my parents were getting older and I wanted to be able to spend a little bit more time with them at the time they both lived in two different states and they were different than the states that I lived in but then when I got into it I realized this is really involved and it’s kind of 24/ 7 but I didn’t look back I loved it.

Eric: Where did you go to law school and how long did you sell real estate?

Farrah: I went to law school at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and I sold real estate for 13 years

Eric: Wow what a unique opportunity for C.A.R to be able to find an attorney with a specialty in civil rights and a real estate professional now sitting at the helm of the organization over diversity equity and inclusion, I mean you’re like Halley’s Comet… .I mean something like an opportunity like this doesn’t come along I’m sure any organization seeking to have someone with your skillset to lead diversity. The other thing that comes to mind is I’ve been a member of C.A.R ever since I’ve been a licensed agent and I don’t recall a position like this ever existing.

Farrah: I think they had someone in a similar role at least 20 years ago for a while and they also had, I don’t know if it was called equal opportunity or fair housing or equal opportunity and fair housing committee, but what they ended up doing…, is consolidating the committees. They wanted to have things be more streamlined, they felt like there was overlap between multiple committees so they streamlined that fair housing-related committee into the homeownership housing committee but as what we decided to do recently our board voted to reinstate the fair housing policy committee and the diversity committee and to have fair housing and diversity forums at every meeting because they realized the importance of these topics and that we weren’t really fully able to discuss them without having these governance bodies.

Eric: well congratulations on your leadership role in the organization and my hat’s off to CAR and their leadership team for making fair housing and diversity an absolute priority. I’m going to ask you more questions about diversity within the CAR organization and it’s important that they have someone to not only reach out to minority trade associations but I also think it’s important to continue

to find individuals like yourself within the organization to take on leadership roles. So before we get into that I want to talk more high level about C.A.R’s mission and its purpose. they are a real estate trade association but I think it’s becoming clear to all trade associations that it’s more than just being about the trade that they have to really get into how the members are conducting themselves in their lives and then their business and that makes it a social as well as a political opportunity for improvement among its members so what is the mission the formal mission if you will of C.A.R.

Farrah: the formal mission is to basically be a trade organization as you say to its membership and make sure there are programs and services that will enhance the member’s freedom and ability to conduct their individual businesses successfully and with integrity and competency and through collective action and to promote real property ownership and the preservation of real property rights

Eric: well it appears that the focus is on its members and property rights would also support why C.A.R as an organization has taken a very conservative position on most propositions that have come out of the political arena would you say that the organization as a whole is conservative in terms of their approach to policy real estate and Community?

Farrah: I would say it’s a bit more nuanced because first of all, our members come from all corners of California, and with that 850 member board that means that we’ve got folks who represent all kinds of communities and so you’ve got folks at all levels of the political spectrum. I think definitely there is a lot of publicity around certain things that are deemed to be conservative where we’re looking at protecting our small mom and pop investor members or the business interests of them and also even their livelihoods and their homes…. conservative when we talk about them. …we look at barriers to entry of homeownership, we look at challenges around housing, and we look at issues where vulnerable homeowners are potentially going to lose their home or have an undue expense we help support seniors. There are policies that C.A.R has taken that might seem actually very progressive. we actually recently took on the Uniform Heirs Property Act and I don’t know if you know about that that proposed law but it’s a uniform law that a lot of states are taking on and it’s to help make sure that that homeowners who are vulnerable to losing their generational wealth because they have died without a will or without a trust are able to preserve that wealth in various ways as that does that property either passes on to the next generation or someone tries to make it a sale that it’s not done in such a way to for that sale to be done where they lose their equity and so it’s a little bit hard to explain but there are things like that where we look at the more vulnerable homeowners and the more vulnerable folks who would be homeowners or with their housing because we are one of the few organizations and I’m not going to discount the work of the Realtists and AREAA and NAREB and all the amazing things that they do but we’re really one of the largest organizations in California that supports your low-income homeowners and you’re low-income First-time buyers and so we do a lot of things that I think would be considered progressive and certain things where, of course we’re having a lower income or moderately income homeowner who is vulnerable in some other kind of way might seem kind of conservative but I would suggest that we really look at the big picture there.

Eric: Farrah you’re absolutely right in terms of the size of the organization 200 000 realtors makeup CAR which means you’re willing a great deal of influence on both elections on policy even the practice of real estate and so perhaps the view that many might have of CAR on especially when they take certain positions in regard to policies that maybe there’s not there’s no one there

really kind of explaining why in a way that we can all understand we just have the position document that’s sent out and that’s about it. Is CAR doing something to maybe improve the level and the frequency of communication or maybe that’s why you’re here now?

Farrah: Yes! so one of the things that CAR is doing is we in, let’s just say for our board of directors let’s start there with our board of directors, we’re including fair housing impact statements in our briefing papers so that our members are better briefed as to the potential of fair housing or disparate impact of a proposed policy also this is one of the reasons why diversity is so important is to really make sure that all of these voices and perspectives are at the table in our leadership as we’re considering things and that those are perspectives that then come into the discussion. something else that I’m doing is you know we are working on making sure that we’re educating our members better around fair housing their fair housing responsibility the importance of fair housing and so some of the things that I’m working on is that messaging is for forward-facing social media marketing the magazine and our e-blast to our members so absolutely that is a big piece of what I do.

Eric: it seems like you have a lot to do a lot of work. can you tell us why you made this transition from being your own boss you know that’s why a lot of real estate agents become real estate agents if they’ve had corporate careers you know they’re tired of working for someone they want to have unlimited income and freedom and you have done just the opposite you are working hard and responsible for a lot so why did you join the organization in the leadership capacity what was your motivating Fact?

Farrah: well I wouldn’t have left real estate for any old job I mean I did love being a realtor and I loved supporting my clients I’m in touch with so many of them they still thank me for helping them become homeowners especially since they’re stuck in their houses during the pandemic but this was one of those positions where it really tied together so many things that I find to be really important it was a huge part of my ‘why’ as a realtor to expand the opportunity for homeownership to everyone and to make sure that folks were really well supported in their home ownership journey I was volunteering to develop closing cost grants and giving consulting on down payment assistance programs I chaired the federal committee and was helping to lobby to make federal laws better for homeowners reducing fees for homeowners and even taking it way back to my undergraduate degree was in sociology so you know I dug up a bunch of my papers and they were all about race and injustice and inequity and equality and society and so this has been my why for my entire life and for this opportunity it really was a special opportunity to get to do this really important work. and it’s not just about me there are so many people who care about this so it really is an honor to work with all of the people who have been working on these issues for so long and in a formal way now not just as a volunteer.

Farrah wilder vice president-chief diversity equity and inclusion officer with the California Association of realtor folks this has been a great interview so far getting to know Farrah and all that she’s responsible for and it sounds like she took her volunteer work and made it a real job and sometimes that’s what happens we spend so much time with those of us who are willing to take the time to be involved and engaged in the community and trying to make a difference that it can run into the time the little time we have left to run our businesses and so it’s a smart move and it sounds like a bear you’ve been preparing for this all of your life.

To watch the full interview, go to; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v9HErPE27AI&t=584s